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Book_ 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 






* 





















FAITH OF THE FREE 









FAITH OF THE FREE 


»» 


By 


VAN METER AMES * WILLIAM CLAYTON BOWER 
MARGUERITTE HARMON BRO * ORVIS F. JORDAN 
STERLING W. BROWN * SAMUEL C. KINCHELOE 
CHARLES CLAYTON MORRISON * DONALD DOOLEY 
ELLSWORTH FARIS * WINFRED ERNEST GARRISON 
CLARENCE W. HAMILTON * HERBERT L. WILLETT 
EDWARD A. HENRY * B. FRED WISE * ROY G. ROSS 
HENRY K. HOLSMAN * GUY W. SARVIS • IRVIN E. 
LUNGER * S. VERNON McCASLAND * T. V. SMITH 
ARTHUR E. MURPHY • HENRY C. TAYLOR 


LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE 


Edited by 


WINFRED ERNEST GARRISON 


Willett, Clark & Company 


CHICAGO 


NEW YORK 


1940 



Copyright 1940 by 
WILLETT, CLARK &» COMPANY 


0 

> 

3 , 


Manufactured in The U. S. A. by The Plimpton Press 
Norwood, Mass.-La Porte, Ind. 


©ClA 151833 

RECEIVED 

MOV - 11940 

COPYRIGHT OFFICE 




Dedicated to 

EDWARD SCRIBNER AMES 
in Appreciation of his Ministry in the 
University Church of Disciples of Christ 
Chicago 
1900-1940 






INTRODUCTION 



HE immediate occasion for the writing and publication 


A of this book is the completion, in October 1940, of the 
forty-year ministry of Edward Scribner Ames with the Uni¬ 
versity Church of Disciples of Christ, Chicago. 

A theme which has been central in his preaching and 
which may be considered as the dominant and unifying 
theme of this volume is this: “ A religious value is always also 
some other kind of value.” The implication is that religion 
at its fullest does not cultivate a specific area apart from prac¬ 
tical and cultural interests, but expresses itself in and through 
these interests, nourishes them, is nourished by them, and 
furnishes to them a unifying point of view and purpose. 
Values become religious in proportion to their felt impor¬ 
tance in relation to men’s deepest, highest and most general 
interests, and especially as they represent a shared experience 
and involve a recognition of social responsibility. 

Only free minds can find this concept of religion congenial 
to their thinking, and only a free church can be hospitable 
to the varied interests which it embraces. It is, to be sure, 
possible for an authoritarian church to attempt to extend its 
control over all phases of man’s life. Ecclesiastical totalitari¬ 
anism is an old and ugly story. Finding religious values in 
all the areas of experience is very different from imposing 
priestly rule upon them. We have to do here with the re¬ 
ligion of free men trying to live and think in such a way that 
their living and thinking will be religious in quality. 


Vll 


INTRODUCTION 


viii 

It is one thing to hear this idea stated and elaborated from 
the pulpit; it is another thing to observe the reaction to it 
by members of the congregation. Under Dr. Ames’s ministry 
the church has drawn into its fellowship an extraordinary 
number and variety of men and women who have made note¬ 
worthy contributions in the fields of philosophy, education, 
social studies and work, literature, journalism, politics, eco¬ 
nomics, agriculture and the several sciences, as well as in 
many forms of what is commonly called religious work. It 
is believed that statements by members of this group will, 
in a unique way, illustrate the fruitfulness of an interpreta¬ 
tion of religion which, including but not limiting itself to 
theology and the operations of the church, finds expression 
in all the areas of our contemporary culture. 

The contributors to this volume are all present or former 
members of the University Church of Disciples of Christ. 
They came to it with religious backgrounds scarcely less 
varied than their professional interests and occupations. 
Those invited to participate in writing the book were selected 
from a much larger number who were equally eligible. The 
editor’s only regret is that limitations of space forbade the 
inclusion of others. He takes this opportunity to thank 
the contributors for their generous cooperation, and to in¬ 
troduce them. 


Van Meter Ames, Ph.D., associate professor of philosophy, Univer¬ 
sity of Cincinnati. Author of The Aesthetics of the Novel, Intro¬ 
duction to Beauty, Out of Iowa, etc. Son of Dr. E. S. Ames. 

William Clayton Bower, A.M., LL.D., professor of religious edu¬ 
cation and chairman of the field of practical theology, Divinity 
School of the University of Chicago; chairman Chicago Council 
of Religious Education. Formerly dean of the College of the 


INTRODUCTION 


IX 


Bible, Lexington, Ky. Author of The Curriculum of Religious 
Education, Religion and the Good Life, The Living Bible, etc. 

Margueritte Harmon Bro, writer and lecturer. Formerly missionary 
in China; assistant to the minister, University Church of Dis¬ 
ciples of Christ, Chicago; editor Social Action. Author of When 
Children As\ and of many plays; co-author of A Handbook of 
Drama. 

Sterling W. Brown, Ph.D., minister of education, University 
Church of Christ, Des Moines, la., and assistant professor of 
applied Christianity, Drake University. Formerly director of 
Oklahoma Disciples Foundation and associate professor of reli¬ 
gious education, University of Oklahoma. 

Donald Dooley, Ph.D., professor of physics, Hiram College, Hiram, 
Ohio. 

Ellsworth Faris, Ph.D., professor emeritus of sociology, University 
of Chicago. Formerly missionary in Africa (1897-1904); pro¬ 
fessor of psychology, University of Iowa; editor American Journal 
of Sociology. Author of The Nature of Human Nature. 

Winfred Ernest Garrison, Ph.D., Litt.D., professor of church his¬ 
tory, Disciples Divinity House of the University of Chicago; liter¬ 
ary editor the Christian Century. Author of The March of Faith, 
Religion Follows the Frontier, Intolerance, etc. 

Clarence W. Hamilton, Ph.D., professor of history and philosophy 
of religion and Christian missions, Oberlin College; chairman of 
committee on Chinese studies, American Council of Learned So¬ 
cieties. Formerly professor and head of department of philoso¬ 
phy (1914-27), University of Nanking, China. Author of 
Buddhism in India, Ceylon, China and Japan. 

Edward A. Henry, B.D., Litt.D., director of libraries, University of 
Cincinnati. Formerly librarian of Divinity School of the Univer¬ 
sity of Chicago; assistant professor of Old Testament, extension 
division, University of Chicago; president Ohio Library Asso¬ 
ciation (1927-28). Editor of Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by 
American Universities 1939-40. 

Henry K. Holsman, architect, senior partner of Holsman & Hols- 
man, Chicago; fellow of American Institute of Architects; chair- 


X 


INTRODUCTION 


man, committee on blighted areas, National Association for Bet¬ 
ter Housing; designer of many churches, banks, college buildings, 
hotels and residences; associated with Howard Van Doren Shaw 
in erection of University Church of Disciples of Christ, Chicago; 
designer of Disciples Divinity House and Chapel of the Holy 
Grail. Author of Rehabilitating Blighted Areas. 

Orvis F. Jordan, B.D., minister, Community Church, Park Ridge, 
Ill. Formerly minister of Christian Churches at Fisher, Rock¬ 
ford and Evanston, Ill.; editor Campbell Institute Bulletin (1910- 
17); on staff of the Christian Century (1913-23); editor the 
Community Churchman (1923-35). 

Samuel C. Kincheloe, Ph.D., professor of the sociology of Chris¬ 
tianity, Chicago Theological Seminary; associate director of re¬ 
search and survey, Chicago Congregational Union. Author of 
Religion in the Depression and The American City and Its 
Churches. 

Irvin E. Lunger, Ph.D., associate pastor, University Church of Dis¬ 
ciples of Christ, Chicago; acting minister after Oct. 1, 1940. 

S. Vernon McCasland, Ph.D., professor of religion, University of 
Virginia. Formerly professor and chairman of department of 
religion, Goucher College, Baltimore; annual professor, Ameri¬ 
can School of Oriental Research, Jerusalem (1937-38). Author 
of The Resurrection of Jesus. 

Charles Clayton Morrison, D.D., LL.D., Litt.D., editor the Chris¬ 
tian Century since 1908; professorial lecturer, Chicago Theo¬ 
logical Seminary. Author of The Daily Altar, The Outlawry of 
War, The Social Gospel and the Christian Cultus, What Is 
Christianity? , etc. 

Arthur E. Murphy, Ph.D., professor and head of department of 
philosophy, University of Illinois. 

Roy G. Ross, B.D., LL.D., general secretary, International Council of 
Religious Education. Formerly executive secretary, department 
of religious education, United Christian Missionary Society (1928- 
36). 

Guy W. Sarvis, Ph.D., professor of sociology, Ohio Wesleyan Uni¬ 
versity. Formerly missionary in China; professor in University 


INTRODUCTION 


xi 


of Nanking; member of fact-finding commission (Far Eastern 
section) for Laymen’s Foreign Missions Inquiry. 

T. V. Smith, Ph.D., LL.D., professor of philosophy, University of 
Chicago; editor International Journal of Ethics; congressman- 
at-large from Illinois. Author of The Democratic Way of Life, 
The Philosophic Way of Life, Beyond Conscience, Creative 
Sceptics, The Promise of American Politics, etc. 

Lewis S. C. Smythe, Ph.D., professor of sociology, University of Nan¬ 
king, Chengtu, Sze., China; consultant of the Chinese govern¬ 
ment on cooperatives. 

Henry C. Taylor, Ph.D., LL.D., director of the Farm Foundation. 
Formerly professor and chairman of department of agricultural 
economics, University of Wisconsin; chief of office of farm man¬ 
agement, U. S. Department of Agriculture; chief of bureau of 
agricultural economics; American member of permanent commis¬ 
sion of International Institute of Agriculture, Rome, Italy; mem¬ 
ber of commission of Laymen’s Foreign Missions Inquiry. Au¬ 
thor of Outlines of Agricultural Economics, etc. 

Herbert L. Willett, Ph.D., LL.D., professor emeritus of Oriental 
languages and literatures, University of Chicago; pastor emeritus 
of Kenilworth (Ill.) Union Church. Formerly dean of the 
Disciples Divinity House; president Chicago Church Federation; 
chairman midwest committee, Federal Council of Churches of 
Christ in America. Author of Life and Teachings of Jesus, Plea 
for Union, Moral Leaders of Israel, The Bible Through the Cen¬ 
turies, The Jew Through the Centuries, etc. 

B. Fred Wise, M.A., director of education and director of music, Uni¬ 
versity Church of Disciples of Christ; instructor in voice, Ameri¬ 
can Conservatory of Music, Chicago; instructor in history and 
interpretation of art, George Williams College; musical editor 
of forthcoming hymnal for Baptists and Disciples. 

It will readily be understood that, as there is no regimenta¬ 
tion of opinion in this church, so there was none in the prepa¬ 
ration of this volume. Each contributor speaks for himself. 
There was not even an attempt to enforce upon the writers 


INTRODUCTION 


xii 

an obvious relevance to what has been called the central 
theme of the volume. It was not insisted that each should 
demonstrate specifically the relation of religion to his special 
field. Some have done that. Others have written about 
aspects of their fields which they consider interesting and 
important to all intelligently religious people. In doing this 
they have, even if indirectly, illustrated the theme and have 
borne witness to the rich variety and the wide inclusiveness 
of religious values. 

W. E. Garrison, 
Editor 


CONTENTS 


Introduction vii 

I. A Functional Concept of Religion i 

William Clayton Bower 

II. An Applied Philosophy of Religion 12 

Arthur E. Murphy 

III. “ As Intelligent as Science ” 25 

Donald Dooley 

IV. Religion and Social Attitudes 35 

Ellsworth Paris 

V. Economic Groupism and the Church 47 

Henry C. Taylor 

VI. Religious Values in Cooperatives 60 

Lewis S. C. Smythe 

VII. Religion and Social Action 74 

Margueritte Harmon Bro 

VIII. A Free Church beside a Free State in a Free 

Society 83 

Charles Clayton Morrison 

IX. Conscience and Politics 96 

T. V . Smith 

X. Religious Fiction no 

Van Meter Ames 

xiii 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


XI. Art and Religion 123 

B. Fred Wise 

XII. The Architecture of a Free Church 131 

Henry K. Holsman 

XIII. Religion and Higher Education 137 

Sterling W. Brown 

XIV. Religious Education 150 

Roy G. Ross 

XV. The Authority of the New Testament 164 
S. Vernon McCasland 

XVI. The Church and the Community 177 

Orvis F. Jordan 

XVII. “ Living ” City Churches 189 

Samuel C. Kincheloe 

XVIII. The Local Church — An Effective 

Religious Community 201 

Irvin E. Lunger 

XIX. A Perspective of Missions 213 

Guy W. Sarvis 

XX. Christianity and the Eastern Religions 224 

Clarence W. Hamilton 

XXI. The Ecumenical Ideal 240 

Herbert L. Willett 

XXII. The Liberal Heritage 252 

Winfred Ernest Garrison 

XXIII. A Bibliography of Edward Scribner Ames 263 
Edward A . Henry 


FAITH OF THE FREE 











A FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT OF RELIGION 

WILLIAM CLAYTON BOWER 


ITHOUT DOUBT one of the most fruitful insights 



* v into the nature of religion in recent years has arisen 
from an understanding of its functional relation to human 
experience. It is equally significant that this insight has come 
from a source outside the tradition of orthodox religion, one 
which is regarded by many conservative religionists as secu¬ 
lar. It has resulted from the application of the methods of 
modern scientific inquiry to the phenomena of religion. 

Only a free religion can be in the deepest sense functional. 
To the degree that religious thought and life are warped into 
the rigid molds of theological tradition or institutional habit 
they tend to become dissociated from the crucial issues of 
contemporary living. Under such conditions the chief con¬ 
cern of organized religion is to recover and reproduce the 
end-products of past religious living rather than to face crea¬ 
tively the situations of the living present in terms of their 
spiritual possibilities. Only the faith of the free can be a 
creative faith, functionally related to life. 

The scientific study of religion had its origin quite unin¬ 
tentionally in the researches of anthropology and ethnology, 
which are devoted to the study of man’s origin and the rise 
and spread of his culture. Discoveries in these fields dis- 


A FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT OF RELIGION 


closed the fact that religion played a fundamental role in the 
life of primitive men. It was and is, in the judgment of one 
of the most astute students of the history of civilization, man’s 
oldest and most fundamental reaction to his world. The 
dawn of culture witnessed also the dawn of conscience. 

Somewhat later the historical method was applied to the 
study of the world’s great religions. At first these were 
studied comparatively for the similarity and differences of 
their beliefs and practices, and in their cultural settings. But 
it soon became evident that each of these religions had a natu¬ 
ral history which could be traced through definite historical 
stages. Consequently, it became clear that it was impossible 
to speak, except in the most general terms, of the religion of 
the Greeks, of the Hindus, of the Hebrews or even of Chris¬ 
tians. Instead, it was necessary to speak of specific historical 
stages in the development of these religions. They were in 
each instance historical processes in which change was united 
with continuity. Moreover, change in the religion of a given 
people was always related to change in the people’s total 
culture. 

The latest phase of the scientific study of religion has 
brought it under the searching light of modern psychology. 
These studies have demonstrated that religion is rooted in 
man’s constitutional nature. It is one aspect of his interaction 
with his world. In this respect it is comparable with his sci¬ 
ence, his art, his philosophy and his technology. Once be¬ 
lieved to arise from his instinctive nature, it is now judged to 
spring from his highest capacities to act intelligently and to 
discover values in his experience and to use them for the re¬ 
finement and ordering of his life. As long as man is man it 
is likely that as his knowledge increases and his competence 


WILLIAM CLAYTON BOWER 


3 

in dealing with his world grows, he will be not less but more 
religious. This is because religion performs an indispensable 
function in his existence. 

The concept of function is itself derived from the biological 
sciences. It could not have invaded the field of religious 
thought until these sciences had arrived at some degree of 
maturity. The derivation of the word at once suggests the 
implications of the concept. Function is concerned with 
use. Every function in an organism serves some end either in 
the survival or in the well-being of the organism, as in the 
case of vision, hearing, nutrition or respiration. In the lower 
forms of organic life all functions are performed by the 
simple protoplasmic mass. In the higher organisms func¬ 
tions become highly specialized and differentiated. As func¬ 
tions become more highly specialized, specialized organs are 
developed for carrying them on, as in the case of the eye, the 
ear, the digestive system and the lungs. The development of 
the organism depends upon its ability to respond to new as¬ 
pects of its environment, to develop new functions and to 
grow new organs. This is the biological account of the way 
in which man has arrived at his present state of development. 
Failing to meet the new possibilities of the environment or 
its new demands, the organism remains static or perishes in 
times of crisis. 

It will thus be seen that there is the closest possible relation 
between function and structure. Thus vision is a function 
that serves the purpose of enlarging the extent of the organ¬ 
ism’s perception of the environment, beyond the limited 
range of touch, taste, smell or even hearing. To take care of 
this function of seeing the eye has been developed as the 
organ of vision, with its retina, its lens, and its muscles for 


4 


A FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT OF RELIGION 


focusing the seeing eye upon near and distant objects. So 
also the bones and muscles of the hand are arranged for the 
hand’s functioning as an organ of manipulation. But in every 
instance the structure is subordinate to the function and 
serves it. 

More recently the idea of function has been applied to vari¬ 
ous phases of man’s activity and culture. Intelligence is best 
understood in terms of the ends it serves in enabling man to 
interpret and give direction to his experience. Language is 
best understood as a means which civilized man has devel¬ 
oped for clarifying his thought, for communication and for 
record. Similarly, mathematics is not appreciated until it is 
seen as a method for dealing with the quantitative aspects of 
experience. The nature of law is not known until it is seen 
to be a constantly evolving procedure for securing equitable 
adjustments of human rights in constantly changing social 
relations. 

In no area of man’s experience has the concept of function 
been more fruitful than in its extension to his religious life. 
The fact that religion has occupied such a fundamental place 
in man’s individual and collective life throughout the history 
of civilization would lead one to suppose that it serves a use¬ 
ful, if not indeed an indispensable, purpose in his survival 
and well-being. Why is man so “ incurably ” religious ? 
The answer to this question is the same as that for all other 
phases of his culture — his science, his philosophy, his ethics, 
his art, his technology, his language, his laws. And it must 
be in terms of the ends for living which religion serves — of 
the needs which it satisfies. 

The chief concern of the scientific students of religion for 
more than half a century has been to discover what the nature 


WILLIAM CLAYTON BOWER 5 

of religion is. As was to be expected, the earlier attempts 
were chiefly based upon the structures of religion — its be¬ 
liefs, its ceremonials, its institutions. But since the beginning 
of the present century this question has been asked in terms of 
the function of religion in meeting human needs which the 
structures of belief, ceremonial and institution serve. In the 
same way the physiologists a generation ago studied the hand 
and the eye from the standpoint of structure, whereas they 
now begin with the question, What uses do the hand and the 
eye serve in the life process of the human being ? Before men 
like Roscoe Pound, law was studied from the viewpoint of 
its content, its form and its precedents; now it is beginning 
to be considered as a living instrument that has its origin in 
human relations and undergoes continual modification as the 
needs of society change. It is not to be wondered at that the 
definitions of religion resulting from the earlier attempts 
were confusing, because they were based upon the fallacy of 
mistaking theology, ceremonial and the institution for re¬ 
ligion. We are beginning to see that the hope of understand¬ 
ing religion lies in discovering its functional relation to the 
life process. 

A survey of the search for the understanding of religion in 
terms of its service to life-needs during the present century 
discloses an unmistakable trend. It is significant in connec¬ 
tion with the present volume that no one has done more to 
further this trend than Dr. Edward Scribner Ames, the pastor 
of the church by the members of which this publication is 
written, in his earlier book on The Psychology of Religious 
Experience and in his later volume on Religion. This trend 
has been to see religion as operating within the field of man’s 
valuational attitude toward his experience. But there are 


6 


A FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT OF RELIGION 


many orders of value, as in science, economics, art, morals and 
politics. How is religion related to these other values ? How 
does it differ from them ? These are the questions that have 
set the direction of the latest phase of thought concerning the 
nature and function of religion. 

It may be said to be the prevailing view that through re¬ 
ligion persons and societies achieve an integration of all the 
specialized values of their varied interests and activities into 
a total meaning and worth of life viewed in its cosmic setting. 
“ A religious value,” in an oft-repeated phrase of Dr. Ames, 
“ is always also some other kind of value.” But it is never 
that other kind of value in isolation from other values. It is 
always that value when intellectually viewed and emotion¬ 
ally felt in relation to the fusion of all values into a total mean¬ 
ing and worth of life. In that fusion, through heightening, 
idealization and completion, something new and creative 
emerges. The result is not an entity. It is a quality that dif¬ 
fuses itself through the entire range of experience, inhering in 
any and every practical interest and activity that is brought 
into vital relation with this living center of comprehending, 
fundamental and enduring values. An experience in any 
area of living is religious when it is interpreted, judged and 
carried through in the light of these comprehending and fun¬ 
damental values. It is non-religious when it is pursued with¬ 
out reference to them, anti-religious when it is pursued in vio¬ 
lation of them. 

It may be said, therefore, that the function of religion is 
twofold. On the one hand, through it man has achieved an 
integration of personal and social experience. Other means 
by which he has integrated his experience are art and phi¬ 
losophy. Though its earlier emphasis upon analysis has 


WILLIAM CLAYTON BOWER 


7 


tended toward the fragmentation of experience, science of 
late offers some hope of becoming an integrating influence 
through the stressing of the interrelatedness of natural and 
social phenomena. Religion differs from these in that it is 
concerned with practical and operative values rather than 
with speculative thought or appreciation. 

From the standpoint of the self, religion has been one of 
the most important factors in the resolution of tensions 
within the personality arising from conflict between desires, 
between impulses and the demands of society, and between 
the roles the person plays in different groups. This unifica¬ 
tion of the self is accomplished through organizing the whole 
personality around compelling convictions and motives, and 
the seeing of one’s life whole. At the same time one of the 
most creative services which religion has rendered is to create 
tensions between ideal values and desires as they actually exist 
and to resolve these tensions by bringing all desires into har¬ 
mony with a higher order of values. When this shift of 
values is sudden and radical it is known as “conversion.” 
When it is gradual and continuous it results in growth. In 
the deepest and most creative sense this is salvation — the 
continuous transformation of life under the influence of the 
highest spiritual values. 

From the standpoint of the objective world, through re¬ 
ligion man has been able to weave together his scattered and 
often conflicting experiences in interacting with that world 
into a comprehending and consistent pattern of reality — a 
universe. It is of great significance that the periods of cul¬ 
tural synthesis have been those of religious faith. It is inter¬ 
esting that at the present moment when leaders of thought 
are casting about for principles for the unification of our 


8 


A FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT OF RELIGION 


modern fragmented culture in metaphysics and science, 
there is an unmistakable turning on the part of many to re¬ 
ligion. To the religious mind intelligence and values lie at 
the heart of the universe, endowing it with order and moral 
purpose. So vivid and compelling is this conception of the 
nature of reality that the religious mind has reserved for it 
the term most freighted with meaning and value in man’s 
vocabulary — God. In such a universe man has sought and 
found security and support for his moral and spiritual as¬ 
pirations. From it he derives help-giving strength for meet¬ 
ing the demands which life makes upon him. His highest 
and most vivid religious attitude arises from a sense of re¬ 
sponsible participation in, and identification with, the proc¬ 
esses of the universe that make for the growth of values — 
working with God for a better world of justice, love and 
peace. 

On the other hand, creative religion brings a critical and 
reconstructive influence to bear upon every event and process 
of personal and social living. It sets each particular activity 
in the light of the cross-criticism of all the values involved in 
each specialized area of living — economic, intellectual, so¬ 
cial, political, aesthetic and moral. This is why exploitative 
industry, imperialistic nationalism, race discrimination and 
war have drawn the thunderbolts of prophets, from Amos 
down to Rauschenbusch and “The Social Creed of the 
Churches.” It is of the utmost significance that Jesus 
launched his trenchant criticisms against a priestly, scribal 
and institutionalized religion that had lost its capacity for 
social criticism in terms of the realities of living issues. In all 
its creative epochs Christianity has maintained a radically 
critical attitude toward the social processes that frustrate or 
destroy personal and social values. 


WILLIAM CLAYTON BOWER 


9 


But creative Christianity is not content with mere criticism. 
Since it is primarily concerned with practical and operative 
values, it looks beyond criticism to social reconstruction. 
From the prophets on through Jesus and the great religious 
leaders of modern times the Jewish-Christian religion has 
cherished the vision of a Kingdom of God in which justice 
and love will prevail in all the relations that bind men to¬ 
gether into a social community. The problem on which men 
of prophetic religious passion are not clear is whether this re¬ 
constructive influence should be exercised through the or¬ 
ganization of blocs of power or through the functioning of 
Christian men and women who, in their capacity as citizens, 
bring to bear the reconstructive influence of Christian ideals 
and motives upon the management of industry, the making 
and administering of law, the formulation and execution of 
national policy, or the ordering of international relationships. 

It will thus be seen how vital and creative religion is an 
integral part of the common life in its every dimension. 
From the practical interests and activities of the common life 
religion derives the specific and concrete content and pattern 
of concepts, practices and institutions. These are the struc¬ 
tures through which religion gets itself expressed. They 
change as the practical interests and activities of the common 
life change. It is in the relationships of the common life that 
creative religion functions through the integration, cross¬ 
criticism and reconstruction of all the processes of everyday 
living. 

Throughout its long history religion has shown a tendency 
to move from the center of the life process where it operates 
as an integrative and reconstructive influence to the margin 
of the common life where it becomes only another specialized 
interest and activity, pursuing its values in isolation from 


10 


A FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT OF RELIGION 


other values. It then becomes preoccupied with its theology, 
its ritual and ordinances, its sacred literature, its institutions. 
It has become priestly and scribal. It has become institu¬ 
tionalized. By this process of withdrawal from the issues 
and stresses of the common life religion loses its essential 
quality as creative religion and becomes secularized. 

In that event, religion not only loses its capacity for criti¬ 
cism and its power to influence the common life, but has often 
become a disintegrative influence in culture and personal 
living. It may, and often has, set itself in opposition to new 
discoveries of truth and emerging values in a constantly 
changing social experience. It dulls sensitivity to moral and 
spiritual issues. It becomes a bulwark of tradition and a 
champion of the status quo. It substitutes the end-products 
of past religious living for a religious experience of life in a 
real and present world. 

Creative religion, on the other hand, derives its dynamic 
character, as with the eighth century prophets and with Jesus, 
from fresh and immediate contact with reality as it appears 
in the experience of the common life. For it God is not the 
God of the dead, but of the living. He is now as creatively at 
work as ever he was in any epoch of history. Without dis¬ 
counting the past and its heritage of tradition, creative re¬ 
ligion focuses its attention upon the living present as the 
growing-point of reality. It is even more eager to discover 
and explore the possibilities of our contemporary experience 
than to follow its precedents. It is here in the ongoing expe¬ 
rience of living men in interaction with the real and present 
changing world that we of this generation must find God if 
we are to find him at all. 

But in such a search for the religious meaning of life in the 


WILLIAM CLAYTON BOWER 


ii 


present creativity in religion is not set in conflict with tradi¬ 
tion. Our own religious experience of life is set in a long 
tradition which has gathered up into itself the faith, the as¬ 
pirations and the achievements of countless generations. In 
our search for religious values the funded experience of past 
religious living becomes available as a resource for interpret¬ 
ing, judging and redirecting our own experience of the mod¬ 
ern world at the point where it moves out into an uncharted 
and undetermined future, and where both culture and re¬ 
ligion are being re-created. 

Religion, so conceived, gives promise of becoming in our 
day an influence of increasing importance in shaping the new 
phase of culture into which we seem to be moving. There 
are not wanting evidences that the new epoch will be one of 
synthesis which will bind into a living unity our present dis¬ 
membered culture. And it is a deep conviction on the part 
of many that at the heart of the new synthesis will be a vital 
and creative religious faith. 


II 


AN APPLIED PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 

ARTHUR E. MURPHY 

TT IS an article of faith in many quarters today that philo- 
sophical reflection remains abstract, unverified and in¬ 
complete until it has been tested by its capacity to clarify the 
problems of men as these arise in the course of their practical 
behavior, and to provide, or substantially help to provide, a 
working solution for such problems. Deweyites and Stalin¬ 
ists, agreed on so little else, are at least at one in insisting on 
the “ union of theory and practice ” as essential to a respec¬ 
table philosophy, and there are still plenty of old-fashioned 
idealists with us to remark that in this respect both groups are 
only rediscovering — in a somewhat distorted version, to be 
sure — a truth asserted long ago by the philosophers of the 
“ great tradition ” and maintained by their disciples ever 
since. A doctrine so widely preached should, particularly in 
this instance, have been as frequently put into practice. Yet 
when we look for instances of applied philosophy we find, in 
recent times especially, very few that have been able at once 
to maintain their philosophical integrity and also to offer 
practical guidance of a specific and enlightening sort. It is an 
impressive fact about Dr. Ames’s philosophy of religion that 
it does achieve such a synthesis. It has operated over a period 
of years as an experiment in applied philosophy and it thus 
12 


ARTHUR E. MURPHY 


i3 


provides a specimen of this much desired and rarely found 
species worthy of careful study from a logical as well as from 
a “ practical ” point of view. It is from this standpoint that I 
propose to discuss it in this paper. 

The philosophy to be applied was, in general, that of the 
“ Chicago school ” of Mead and Dewey, a school in which 
Dr. Ames, as pupil and colleague, had a vital and construc¬ 
tive part. It was a major tenet in that school that reflective 
thinking arises when activities are blocked, that it has for its 
subject matter a problematic situation objectively dubious 
and indeterminate in that the forces there operative cannot 
continue satisfactorily without the clarification and readjust¬ 
ment that only critical thinking can supply, and, finally, that 
such thinking justifies itself to the extent to which action, 
under its guidance, does in fact achieve a result in which the 
conflict has been removed and a unified situation achieved. 
Effective thought, including philosophical thought, thus 
finds its place within ongoing activity; and the measure of its 
success in enabling action which, without it, would be im¬ 
peded and blind, to continue harmoniously and fruitfully, 
is the final measure of its cognitive validity. 

If this theory is to be evaluated by the tests which it de¬ 
clares to be finally authoritative for all theories, we must look 
for the fruits in which its meaning and empirical warrant are 
to be found. Dr. Ames’s use of philosophy in clearing up the 
difficulties confronting Protestant Christianity in the early 
years of this century and directing the energies of a religious 
group toward an intellectually cogent and practically effec¬ 
tive reorganization of faith and doctrine has shown, I believe, 
in a very concrete way, how a philosophy thus applied will 
actually operate. To the fine abundance of its fruits in all 


i 4 AN APPLIED PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 

fields of religious activity the other essays in this volume will 
testify, as the work of the University Church of Disciples has 
testified for forty years. My present interest is first of all, 
however, in the logic of the procedure by which such results 
were accomplished and the criteria by means of which its 
philosophical adequacy can be determined. For I believe that 
philosophy, as well as religion, has something to learn from 
the unique cooperation of philosophy and religion here 
achieved. 


A PROBLEMATIC SITUATION 

The “ objective situation,” in response to which Dr. Ames’s 
theory was developed, is well known and requires here only 
a brief reference. The ongoing activity of Protestant Chris¬ 
tianity, especially in more liberal churches, was, in the period 
in question, radically impeded by conflicts of traditional doc¬ 
trines and preconceptions with ideas and procedures accepted 
as genuine and authoritative in other aspects of human ex¬ 
perience. The “ warfare between science and theology ” was 
of course an old story, and there were in the field any num¬ 
ber of plausible theories dedicated to the proposition that 
between science (properly interpreted) and religion (rightly 
understood) there need be no opposition. On the dialectical 
level these theories were often effective, but it was not on the 
dialectical level that the real difficulty was felt. In practice 
men concerned in their daily lives with the ideals of democ¬ 
racy and social reform, and committed in their secular beliefs 
to the acceptance of scientific procedures, were finding the 
churches, their worship and their doctrine increasingly iso¬ 
lated from and irrelevant to the “ realities ” of their experi¬ 
ence. The danger was not so much that religious beliefs 


ARTHUR E. MURPHY 


i5 


would be rejected as that they might simply lapse into in¬ 
nocuous irrelevance through failure to make effective con¬ 
nection with the interests and ideals elsewhere at work in the 
modern world. 

For those deeply concerned with the continued effectiveness 
of the religious values of which, in America, the Protestant 
churches were the recognized repository, the basic problem 
was to find a way of linking these values with those of secular 
life, and of drawing on the resources of secular experience, in 
science, in medicine, in the work and ideals of an American 
city, to revitalize religious faith. That “ religious experience 
is always at the same time some other kind of experience ” 
and that the church can find in these other kinds of ex¬ 
perience sources of genuinely religious insight, was evidently 
the doctrine required. For those whose faith was robust 
enough to face with enthusiasm the reconstruction required 
to give this doctrine a sound intellectual basis and an adequate 
religious expression, the persuasiveness and hopefulness of a 
religion of shared experience, social reform, and confident 
delight in and reverence for those forces in nature, and man 
as a part of nature, that conserve human values, were very 
great. 

Yet this reconstruction was by no means an easy affair. The 
factors in religious belief and practice which had operated 
to cut the churches off from secular activities were a genuine 
part of the objective situation and strongly intrenched therein. 
If these factors were an essential part of religion, as in the 
history of these churches they had regularly been supposed 
to be, then the needed reform would have been very difficult 
indeed. But were they essential ? Or could they not rather 
and more accurately be regarded as accretions, understand- 


16 


AN APPLIED PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 


able in terms of the social and intellectual atmosphere in 
which these churches had developed, but no part of the pri¬ 
mary and basic meaning of religion as such, and hence no 
barrier to the reconstruction of the religion in question along 
lines suitable to the needs and ideas of the time? To main¬ 
tain sufficient continuity with the religious tradition of Prot¬ 
estant Christianity to carry over what was essential and abid¬ 
ing in it into the new synthesis and, at the same time, to 
establish that continuity with secular ideals and beliefs which 
that tradition had lost, was not an easy task, nor one to be 
accomplished merely by dialectical ingenuity. It required a 
conception of religion at once intellectually defensible in the 
light of the best sociological and psychological information 
obtainable, and also practically adequate to the needs of the 
liberal churches in the circumstances in which, as religious 
organizations offering guidance and inspiration to those in 
need of them, they were required to operate. The notion 
of what constitutes religion essentially that emerges from this 
situation is likely to combine theory and practice in a striking 
way. 


REDEFINING RELIGION 

How are we to decide what religion is essentially, or which 
among proposed definitions ought to be accepted ? It is com¬ 
monly held that a definition cannot be either true or false, 
and that we are free to use any word, including the word 
“ religion,” as we please, provided that we are honest and 
consistent in that usage. And yet there has been no subject 
more hotly debated in the last forty years than that of the 
proper definition and use of terms like “religion” and 
“ God.” What, in these cases, have the disputants really been 


ARTHUR E. MURPHY 


U 

arguing about, and how can the issues between them be 
empirically and practically settled ? 

The usage of these terms in Dr. Ames’s philosophy of re¬ 
ligion not only gives rise to this question but also provides us 
with a means of answering it. There are, I think, three 
closely related but distinguishable issues here. The first has 
to do with the proper usage of the word “ religion.” Words 
and their associations have a profound influence on men’s 
thoughts and actions. In the tradition of Protestant Christi¬ 
anity the beliefs and practices habitually termed “ religious ” 
have, on the whole, been linked with doctrines about super¬ 
natural powers, the way in which these powers influence 
men’s lives, and the proper attitude to be assumed toward 

them, which Dr. Ames and other liberal theologians have 
wished to eliminate from the “ religion ” which they propose. 
It is clear that the proposed “ religion ” is in some respects 
different, even radically different, from what in these re¬ 
ligious groups has normally been called by that name. It is 
also in other respects continuous with traditional usage. Is it, 

then, right and proper to go on calling the reconstructed 
product “ religion,” or not ? This must mean, I take it: Is it 
on the whole more enlightening than misleading to empha¬ 
size the continuity and minimize the differences between the 
traditional and the revised usage by the continued use of 
such terms ? If this leads the hearer to suppose that this is 
“ religion ” in the sense in which he has traditionally under¬ 
stood it, if it even leads the liberal to carry over into his new 
attitude emotional associations appropriate only to religion 
in the unrevised version, then it is misleading. If, on the 
other hand, it seems to emphasize the continuity between tra¬ 
ditional religion and the version proposed, and harmoniously 


i8 


AN APPLIED PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 


to redirect the worshiper s energies and enthusiasm toward 
a more fruitful issue, then it is enlightening. Its adequacy, 
in other words, is to be judged by its role in the ongoing 
activity in which the forces of an “ impeded ” and confused 
religion are to be redirected to a satisfactory issue. This is 
even more obviously the case with the use of the term “ God ” 
in preaching to designate entities or processes other than 
those with which the believer has normally associated it. 

The second issue is a factual and historical one. How uni¬ 
versal are the beliefs and practices which the traditional usage 
treats as essential to religion ? If we look beyond the limits 
of Christianity, or indeed of any religion in its developed 
form, we shall find much that is historically continuous and 
psychologically akin to “ religion ” as we know it, in which 
such beliefs do not occur. Thus a study of the history and 
psychology of religion will enable us, as Dr. Ames said in 
The Psychology of Religious Experience, to “ dissociate the 
permanent principles of religion from its accidental content, 
and gain a perspective in which the developed, historical re¬ 
ligions may be interpreted.” If the result of such a study is to 
show that men’s manner of worship and idea of God are es¬ 
sentially mediated through their social life and vary with 
their secular habits and needs, we shall naturally be more 
hospitable to a further variation, deliberately introduced to 
express the aspirations and meet the needs of our time, and 
thus, in its very departure from the ideas of the past, in har¬ 
mony with what we should expect of a religion evolving and 
developing in response to demands of life. It is another evi¬ 
dence of the union of theory and practice that the liberali¬ 
zation of a particular religious tradition should here be ac¬ 
companied and supported by a factual generalization as to 
the pervasive traits and conditions of religious behavior. 


ARTHUR E. MURPHY 


T 9 

With the support of such a generalization it can be said that 
an activity in which men cooperate to idealize and serve the 
highest social values of their time is appropriately termed a 
religion, since it embodies the generic character common to 
all types of such behavior, specifying it, as all others have 
done, in those terms which are required by the needs of the 
time. 

There is a third level, however, on which the issue arises. 
A statement of what religion “ really ” is may very frequently 
be a statement as to what religion ought to be in order to be 
worthy of acceptance. Dr. Ames was not only describing 
religion in general, he was also proposing a special form of 
religion as that appropriate to and sufficient for the needs of 
enlightened men in the contemporary world. Such a pro¬ 
posal involves the claim that the elements selected as essential 
to religion are in this instance sufficient to meet the needs of a 
working religion under the conditions described. This claim 
refers specifically to the future, and can be tested only by its 
fruits. Can a religion that eschews all special and unique 
religious objects and is willing to assert that “ the religious 
life has no peculiar content of its own, for it is just a way 
of meeting and entering into all the basic relations of com¬ 
mon life ” actually maintain those attitudes of reverence, de¬ 
votion and confident security in the face of a world still held, 
in spite of all its evils, to be “ friendly at heart,” which a re¬ 
ligious way of meeting the relations of life is held, even by 
the liberal, to involve ? This is not a question to be settled 
dialectically. It must be put to the test of practice, with all 
the imagination and enthusiasm which a mind at once deeply 
religious and philosophically enlightened can bring to the 
task. And in the University Church of Disciples it has been 
tested in this way. 


20 


AN APPLIED PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 


GOD AND REALITY 

It is here that the idea of God assumes a crucial role in this 
philosophy. Dr. Ames, unlike other liberals of a more hu¬ 
manistic persuasion, has been unwilling to give up this no¬ 
tion, and for a very practical reason. God is used religiously, 
and this use is too important to surrender so long as a mean¬ 
ing can be given to statements about God which leaves them 
both empirically true and religiously inspiring. What men 
have said of God — that he is mindful of man and concerned 
to sustain the best in human life in its relation to the cosmic 
processes, and that as such a power making for righteousness 
in man and nature he can be loved and worshiped — can be 
said with literal truth of nature or the life-process in those 
aspects in which it does in fact conserve human values and so 
sustain the good life. Men in their social relations act to 
conserve such values, and men are a part of nature. More¬ 
over, they could not act as they do unless their efforts were 
sustained (though not consciously or by design) by forces 
in nature outside their control. Men have looked to God for 
security. They must find their security in nature. And na¬ 
ture, conceived as including the human process of foresight 
and adjustment, does guarantee such security, not unquali¬ 
fiedly to be sure, but with increasing reliability as men of 
good will and good judgment are inspired to act with re¬ 
ligious zeal for the attainment of good ends. Thus God acts 
through men, and for those who are prepared to translate 
their faith into such terms as these that faith is not in vain. 

It is clear, to be sure, and Dr. Ames has always made it 
clear, that such a faith involves an “ idealization ” of a nature 
which in many respects is not ideal, and a personification of 


ARTHUR E. MURPHY 


21 


what is not, in any ordinary sense of that term, a person. 
Such a procedure has its risks, for it may lead the credulous 
to take in a more usual sense what is held to be true only in a 
somewhat special one. The idealizing process is a part of 
nature in its social dimensions, and a very important one, but 
the way in which this process operates to achieve the good is 
very different from the way in which the God who was be¬ 
lieved to exist outside that process and to guarantee its success 
was supposed to operate. There is much, even in the ideal¬ 
izing process, that is not good, and if we choose to select what 
we approve of, together with the forces which fortunately 
make its functioning possible, as more “ real ” than the other 
aspects of nature and human nature, that is an indication of 
our idealistic preference, not of any other favored status 
which the forces thus preferred possess in the actual course of 
events. Can God, thus identified with those processes in na¬ 
ture of which we approve and used as an object of reverence 
and devotion in the procedures of a liberal religion, actually 
be used in the manner desired ? Calling such processes “ di¬ 
vine ” changes nothing. If, however, the use of the word in 
this sense calls men’s attention to the conditions on which 
their salvation actually depends and inspires them to respond 
with enthusiasm to the possibilities for good which nature 
as we know it does actually present, then it has justified itself 
in use. 

Dr. Ames’s applied philosophy of religion proves thus, on 
examination, to be neither a system of independently ascer¬ 
tainable truth about reality nor a merely sentimental projec¬ 
tion of what we should like to believe or, perhaps, find aes¬ 
thetically pleasing in religions whose doctrines we cannot 
accept. It is a way of solving a particular problem — that 


22 


AN APPLIED PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 


involved in adjusting a continuing religious tradition to the 
dominant social and intellectual trends of the time — in such 
fashion as to continue what is still usable in the old and to 
connect it as fruitfully as possible with those secular agencies 
which are working for the enrichment of human life. It 
thus settles no theological issues in any final way. There 
might be a supernatural deity of the sort whose existence 
scholastic philosophy, e.g., has so frequently tried to demon¬ 
strate. Dr. Ames’s philosophy does not prove that there is 
not. It accepts the methods of science and the ideals of secu¬ 
lar social reform as defining the limits within which religion 
must work. It does this for a cogent reason, that only on this 
basis can religion maintain its continuity with the common 
life of men in the contemporary world. This does not consti¬ 
tute a proof of any assertions as to the existence or non-exist¬ 
ence of God in the more traditional sense. It does, however, 
provide a basis for the maintenance of a religious attitude 
toward those processes through which the values judged 
“ highest ” in modern America are sustained. And it holds, 
finally, on well supported empirical grounds, that this is the 
way in which religion has consistently operated throughout 
its history and that, in consequence, its contemporary adap¬ 
tation to dominant social ideals is not an abandonment but 
a recovery of its meaning. 

DOES IT WORK? 

Does it work ? This evidently is the final question, and the 
only one which enables us to judge this philosophy of religion 
on the terms its own doctrine acknowledges as appropriate. 
That it has worked for a very considerable period and for 
many people there can be little doubt. It has solved the prob- 


ARTHUR E. MURPHY 


23 

lem with which these people were confronted, enabling them 
to accept advanced ideas and share fully in the ideals and 
aspirations of their time without ceasing to be devout. More¬ 
over, it has given that devotion a new outlet, linking it up 
with constructive forces of the greatest value and bringing to 
generous and concrete expression in the affairs of life a re¬ 
ligious idealism which might otherwise have remained nar¬ 
row, frustrated or sentimental. In its time and place this 
doctrine has functioned as the basis for a religion, and the best 
sort of religion, I believe, of which men in that place and 
time were capable. 

Will it continue so to function ? The danger that now con¬ 
fronts it is twofold. Having accepted so wholeheartedly the 
presuppositions of its own time, it stands at something of a 
disadvantage when those presuppositions are being radically 
questioned. “ Science ” and “ democracy ” and the philoso¬ 
phy which is prepared to accept them as final measures of 
what is credible and valuable are less secure in their status 
than they were forty years ago. Questions which then ap¬ 
peared to be settled have been reopened with acrimony and 
much that could be taken for granted must now be justified 
again, and to a disillusioned generation. Will deeper roots 
and a sterner doctrine be needed for a faith that can weather 
the bad times ahead ? 

Again, will this religion be able to maintain itself when the 
sources of inspiration in traditional faith, on which it exten¬ 
sively drew, are no longer available? It was, in its earlier 
stages at least, a way of redirecting a religious enthusiasm 
already present. The question it answered was how men 
could go on being religious in a world where the objects of 
traditional religion had largely lost their meaning. It bor- 


AN APPLIED PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 


24 

rowed from the psalms read, the hymns sung and the holi¬ 
days celebrated, a richness of emotional content which it 
knew how to transfer with sympathy and imagination to new 
objects and occasions. Was it in this respect the genial and 
mellow Indian summer of a faith whose seeds had been 
planted long before and whose fruits could now be enjoyed 
in serenity and ease of mind ? Or was it the beginning of a 
new period in religion, with creative forces sufficient to in¬ 
spire as well as redirect the basic energies and allegiances on 
which a vital religion must depend ? Here again the future 
must provide the answer, and it would still be premature, I 
believe, to pronounce a verdict. 

And this, surely, is what the theory itself should have led us 
to expect. All adjustment, it tells us, is directed to the solu¬ 
tion of problems of a particular time and place, and change 
is to be expected as conditions alter and new problems arise. 
But whatever the future may hold, we are wise, I think, at 
this time to celebrate the achievement of the past and to re¬ 
joice in it. It is good that there should be periods of serenity, 
of optimism, of genial friendliness toward men and ideas, of 
liberalism and liberality. It is such periods that show us 
something of the possibilities of good in human nature and 
of secure happiness. There need here be no conflict between 
theory and practice, no “ chasm ” between ideal and actual, 
for the world which men desire and can understand is in 
substance the world in which they find themselves, and the 
good life presents itself as the natural fulfillment of tenden¬ 
cies already at work and in need at most of some forethought 
and care to be securely maintained. Dr. Ames’s religion is 
one of the finest expressions of such a fortunate period. It is 
good, humanly and religiously, to have had a part in it. 


Ill 


“ AS INTELLIGENT AS SCIENCE ” 

DONALD DOOLEY 

r T y HOUGH it ill behooves us to prophesy in our times, one 
of the most interesting promises of the future in my 
opinion is that we will ultimately learn how to ask the right 
questions concerning the world of spiritual reality that lies 
all unexplored about us and to interpret rightly the answers 
nature gives to our questions. Our present status in this re¬ 
spect resembles that which prevailed in the scientific world 
before the days of Galileo. There were then available as 
guides to an interpretation of the physical world the specula¬ 
tions of the Greeks and a few scattered deliberate, purposive 
scientific experiments, but the world awaited the impact of 
Galileo’s mind to turn it upon a course of experimental in¬ 
vestigation of the physical world, to ask discerning questions 
of nature and thus to decipher her replies. It had never be¬ 
fore occurred to man, for example, to determine experimen¬ 
tally whether heavy stones fell more rapidly than light ones 
merely by shoving two such stones off a window sill and 
noting the results. Aristotle had simply postulated that the 
heavier would be the speedier because it seemed reasonable, 
and this was accepted as an established fact. With Galileo it 
dawned upon the race that experimentation was the superior 
means of exploration in the physical universe and that its data 
25 


2 6 


AS INTELLIGENT AS SCIENCE 


provided the only valid answers to our scientific inquiries. Is 
not the time ripe for a religion as intelligent as science in this 
respect as well as in others ? 


i 

A student of the physical sciences writes today with great 
hesitancy and reserve on any theme directed at the founda¬ 
tions of science. Time was, and not longer than a generation 
ago, when a natural scientist, especially a physicist, felt justi¬ 
fied in the vigorous exposition of his own scientific conclu¬ 
sions, convinced that the model he had devised was a valid 
likeness of nature itself. Today all such confidence has de¬ 
serted him and his very character has changed. A deep hu¬ 
mility has come over him as a result of the destruction and 
rejection of some of his surest conclusions. 

The physicist’s confusion and uncertainty can be laid to 
two principal causes. The first of these is to be found in the 
series of experimental discoveries which ushered in the twen¬ 
tieth century. X-rays, radioactivity, photoelectricity and 
other such phenomena unknown and unsuspected by a 
former generation compelled the enlargement of the scope 
and content of physics beyond the bounds set in the nine¬ 
teenth century. Growth is always disturbing for it involves 
the reorganization of a subject and the reopening of many 
old questions long since laid to rest. But the inconveniences 
accompanying growth could have been accepted philosophi¬ 
cally if they had come alone. The worst reaction evoked by 
these discoveries in themselves might well have been one of 
irritation. 

It remained for mathematics to deal “ the most unkindest 
cut of all ” to its bosom companion, physics, for it is a funda- 


DONALD DOOLEY 


27 


mental concept originating in the field of mathematics which 
has forever made impossible the return of dogmatic certainty 
to physics — the certainty, that is, of nineteenth century phys¬ 
ics — and thus suggests the position of this paper. 

This far-reaching and disturbing but illuminating concept 
deals with the place of postulates in our thinking, not only 
in mathematics but in all other realms. For an understand¬ 
ing of the meaning of a postulate one naturally turns to the 
history of mathematics. The geometers of Euclid’s day, for 
example, were greatly troubled by obvious contradictions in 
their conclusions. No two could reach the same ends and it 
was Euclid’s role to clarify the situation by setting up a list 
of necessary definitions, axioms and postulates. His postu¬ 
lates consist of statements which are taken for granted, con¬ 
cerning which no proof is asked or expected. Presumably 
they are obvious. Thus one of Euclid’s most famous postu¬ 
lates states that through a given point one and only one line 
can be drawn parallel to a given line. This postulate is the 
foundation for the proof of a number of theorems in ge¬ 
ometry. One does not ordinarily question its truth, as no 
proof for it seems necessary. Such are the postulates of 
Euclid and it might be added in passing that an axiom is 
distinguished from a postulate in that the former is merely 
a logical statement, one which sets forth a common concep¬ 
tion of thought, as, for example, the statement that if equals 
are added to equals the sums are equal. 

Until a century ago mathematicians assumed that the pos¬ 
tulates of geometry were unique and that while there con¬ 
ceivably might be others yet to be added to the list by future 
developments, still those already established would remain 
forever valid, undisturbed by substitutes or alternates. In 


28 


AS INTELLIGENT AS SCIENCE 


the early part of the nineteenth century, however, curious 
mathematicians went so far as to examine the consequences 
of removing certain of Euclid’s postulates and replacing 
them with new ones. The surprising result of this inquiry 
was to show that, without a doubt, the new sets of postulates 
were quite as defensible as those of Euclid. It was no more 
obvious, for example, that only one line could be drawn 
through a given point parallel to a given line than that any 
number could be so drawn. A new set of theorems could be 
proved with the new postulates just as logically as the old 
theorems were proved with the old postulates. The ultimate 
conclusion seems to be that, so far as mathematics is con¬ 
cerned, one is free to choose his postulates as he pleases and 
no one can gainsay him the right. Of course it will soon be 
found that some choices will lead to no valuable extensions of 
knowledge, whereas other sets may be much more profitable. 

This then is the situation in the field of mathematics. But 
when one turns to a consideration of the natural sciences, a 
slight difference is noted, for in addition to being logical a 
scientist must be cognizant of experience and of the data of 
his researches. He must therefore limit his postulates to state¬ 
ments beyond the realm of investigation by direct experiment, 
since they must be statements acceptable without question as 
to their proof. There seems to be also another restriction 
imposed upon the postulates of science which is very effective 
though its justification may be open to debate. This has been 
lucidly stated by Professor W. D. MacMillan of the Univer¬ 
sity of Chicago. “ Notwithstanding the fact that each of us 
is free in the choice of his postulates,” he writes, “ so that no 
system of postulates merits the claim of exclusiveness, still, 
on account of our common heredity and experience, it is true 


DONALD DOOLEY 


29 

that certain postulates are commonly made, and have, there¬ 
fore, something like a universal appeal to our aesthetic 
sense .” 1 Professor MacMillan proceeds to list a few such 
postulates, the first of which, for example, states that there 
exists a physical universe, external to myself, with which I 
have experience. 

Such a statement is obviously beyond final proof or test¬ 
ing. One considers it and accepts or rejects it according to 
taste. However, it is equally obvious that the acceptance or 
the rejection of it will determine, in a large measure, one’s 
interpretation of one’s sensory reactions. Our very interpre¬ 
tation of existence itself will be colored by it and by other 
such postulates that we adopt. MacMillan further points 
out that the basic criterion at hand to guide us in the selec¬ 
tion of our scientific postulates is the fact that some sets will 
be found barren of results while others will be fertile to a 
greater or lesser degree. This test of the fertility of the postu¬ 
lates we select and adopt is a great boon to the scientist, and 
it should be added that the test is of equal validity in all fields 
of thought. 

Lest the function of postulates be left too vague in the 
minds of any, let us liken a set of postulates to the framework 
upon which a department store show window display is ar¬ 
ranged. Underlying the exhibits in such a window is some 
sort of structure which supports the goods on display. The 
goods themselves are unaltered by their arrangement in dif¬ 
ferent ways or even by a grouping in their original containers, 
but the value of the goods and their utility can be impressed 
upon the minds of shoppers much more vividly by one ar¬ 
rangement than by another. By analogy the data of scientific 
observation are the goods on display and the postulates con- 


3 o 


AS INTELLIGENT AS SCIENCE 


stitute the framework upon which the data are arranged. 
The postulates greatly clarify, if indeed they do not com¬ 
pletely determine, the meaning, the value and the utility of 
the data. In an earlier day the data garnered from observa¬ 
tions of nature — the sunshine, the wind, the storm and the 
ocean waves — were made meaningful in terms of the ac¬ 
tions of spiritual beings presumably in sympathy with or 
opposed to the purposes and hopes of men. Such a frame¬ 
work served remarkably well for a time but the accumulat¬ 
ing data revealed so many contradictions and required so 
many auxiliary postulates that finally a new framework was 
necessitated and a much less anthropomorphic set of postu¬ 
lates was adopted to explain the physical universe. 

This therefore is the status of natural science as a product 
of the human intellect. It is a structure, elaborate in many 
details, lacking in many others, but erected upon a founda¬ 
tion of postulates that are accepted without ultimate proof 
and without the hope or expectation of such proof. These 
postulates cannot be imposed without our consent, but we 
are constrained, in intellectual honesty, to subject them to the 
test of fertility, discarding without regret those which are 
found unworthy in favor of those more valuable in terms of 
productivity. Such a picture of contemporary science may 
come as something of a shock to the layman who, too easily, 
has come to think of natural science as a field which provides 
convincing proof for its current theories. Even such a uni¬ 
versal postulate as that of the orderliness of nature, that ef¬ 
fect always follows cause, can be expected to survive only so 
long as it proves capable of extending the knowledge of men 
and of broadening their interpretation of the world. One 
would not be fundamentally disturbed, nor would one lose 


DONALD DOOLEY 


3i 


faith or confidence in the significance of science, if one found 
this postulate in disfavor tomorrow and its place taken by an¬ 
other postulate concerning the procedure of nature. 

11 

Assuming now that contemporary science as described here 
can be termed intelligent, what features will characterize a 
religion as intelligent as science ? The first is rather obvious. 
It need scarcely be said that postulates must constitute the 
basis of a religion so described, and, as with the postulates of 
science, they must be accepted without the requirement of 
experimental proof. This I dare say has been a characteristic 
of religion through all time, but in view of the esteem which 
science enjoys it is now doubtless to the advantage of religion 
that it shares this characteristic with science. 

A second condition, however, is one which may prove more 
embarrassing to much traditional religious thinking. It re¬ 
quires that the postulates of one’s religion shall be alterable 
or removable for sufficient cause, being subject to change or 
replacement even as are the postulates of science. The mo¬ 
ment a religious postulate is found unfruitful or even less 
fruitful than an alternate it must be discarded without regret. 
Indeed the satisfaction growing out of the possession of a 
superior postulate must ever compensate for the passing of 
an inferior one, however fondly it may have been cherished 
or however long. 

Even so, this replacement of religious postulates is not 
strictly modern. “Ye have heard it said to them of old . . . 
but I say unto you. . . .” Some still may be unwilling to 
meet this demand of an intelligent religion through the fear 
that the very foundations be overthrown. Science and mathe- 


32 


AS INTELLIGENT AS SCIENCE 


matics, however, have not merely survived such experiences 
but have prospered meanwhile and through the restatement 
and clarification of their postulates have become more virile. 
Wherefore should we fear the consequences in our religious 
thinking? “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall 
make you free.” Truth is always beyond, more of it is yet 
to be discovered and freedom is a larger good. 

As in science, one has, moreover, a criterion to guide in the 
selection of one’s religious postulates. In science the fertility 
of the postulates in leading to an explanation of physical 
phenomena was the cue. So too in religion, the domain of 
which is man’s relation to the universe and to his fellow men 
in the broadest spiritual sense, the test of the postulates shall 
be their fruitfulness in the development of man’s inner spir¬ 
itual life and his outward relations with his fellows. It can 
likewise be said with equal fitness here, as MacMillan has 
said of the postulates of science, that there are those postu¬ 
lates so commonly made in the realm of religion that they 
have something like a universal appeal to our aesthetic or 
moral sense. Perhaps it should be emphasized also that while 
one is free in the choice of postulates after a fashion, yet to 
be acceptable in any sense of the word they must be reason¬ 
able. In fact those which we incorporate into our philosophy 
of life are the most reasonable of all that have been brought 
to light by our personal and social experience to date. 

Judged by this standard of productivity, the superlative 
effectiveness and grandeur of the postulates of Jesus’ religious 
teaching challenge all mankind. At best one can be but 
dimly aware of the possibilities inherent in such postulates 
as that of God as Love, of the eternal worth of human per¬ 
sonality, or of the social values implicit in the reinterpretation 


DONALD DOOLEY 


33 

of the Ten Commandments through the Beatitudes. Human 
life truly predicated on such postulates would attain the sun¬ 
lit heights. A troubled world and our own troubled neigh¬ 
borhoods alike attest our inexcusable failure to adopt them 
and to begin the exploration of their possibilities. 

If, in spite of all this, one can imagine the time when the 
human race will have exhausted the realms disclosed by 
Christ’s precepts, a scientific religion must postulate the ap¬ 
pearance of a new messiah who will formulate still nobler 
goals so that an onward and upward course will unfold itself 
throughout an infinity of time as the race advances. A re¬ 
ligion so conceived must appeal to man’s mind as being just 
as intelligent as any natural science or even as mathematics 
itself. Dissension and strife between science and such a re¬ 
ligion would be impossible. Both would be equally essential 
and fundamental in human life, coordinate in their contribu¬ 
tions and value. By becoming as intelligent as science re¬ 
ligion would surrender its supernatural features to gain a 
new dignity of equality in every sense with science. Per¬ 
haps it could as well be said that religion would then have 
shared its own supernaturalness with other domains of hu¬ 
man thought. Such a religion would seek no priestly privi¬ 
lege, claim no special exemptions, plead no mysterious reve¬ 
lation; but like all other realms of life would walk in its own 
strength, subjecting itself to scrutiny, testing and verifying 
on the basis of its fertility even as all else in life is tested. For 
of religions is it not also true that “ by their fruits ye shall 
know them ” ? 

As one of the fundamental postulates of a religion as in¬ 
telligent as science I should propose, in conclusion, the state¬ 
ment, closely akin to the fundamental postulate of science 


34 


AS INTELLIGENT AS SCIENCE 


already mentioned, that there exists a spiritual world both 
within and apart from myself with which I have valid ex¬ 
perience. The adoption of such a postulate and the experi¬ 
mental exploration of its suggestions and promises will en¬ 
rich human life to an extent that will dwarf its present level. 
“ Now are we sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be.” 


NOTE 

1 W. D. MacMillan, “ Some Mathematical Aspects of Cosmology,” Science, 
July-Aug. 1925. 


IV 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES 

ELLSWORTH FARIS 

HE ATTITUDES of a man are his tendencies, disposi- 



A tions and predispositions to act in a generalized manner 
toward some object. Included are the preferences, convic¬ 
tions and loyalties as well as the negative tendencies such as 
bias, prejudice and antagonism. The term “ attitude ” has 
been adopted from our common speech by the sociologists 
with no essential change of meaning. We speak of the atti¬ 
tude of a voter toward the New Deal, or the arms embargo, 
or Japan, or Hitler. We attempt to instill in our children 
desired attitudes toward the home, the school, money, the 
Constitution, careful driving. We know that the right atti¬ 
tude is desirable in order to insure right conduct. The mean¬ 
ing of the term is, therefore, clear. 

It is necessary to emphasize the generalized character of 
the tendency which an attitude involves. In this respect an 
attitude differs from a fixed habit, for a given attitude may 
lead to an indefinite number of actions varying widely, but 
all consistent and in line with the generalized tendency. 
Thus, a Christian with a strong attitude of loyalty to the 
church will, under the influence of this attitude, make a 
speech in favor of the church, give money to its support, at¬ 
tend its services, or do any one of many acts so long as they 


35 


36 RELIGION AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES 

are consistent with the attitude. This is what is meant by 
a generalized tendency. 

Attitudes are related to action somewhat as a cause is re¬ 
lated to a result, but the reverse is also true: our attitudes ex¬ 
ist in us as the result of the actions we have done. Our atti¬ 
tudes may be thought of as the residues or deposits left over 
from our prior actions, remaining to affect in turn what we 
shall subsequently do. While it is often difficult to recall just 
when or just why a given attitude has been acquired, yet it 
is certain that each one of the enormous number of the atti¬ 
tudes of every one of us is the result of one or more definite 
and specific events in which certain definite things were said 
or done to us to which we responded and on which we re¬ 
flected. It is the task of education to say and do to children 
those things that will cause them to respond appropriately, 
thus inculcating approved attitudes. The political cam¬ 
paigner is endeavoring to strengthen the attitudes of his ad¬ 
herents, to change the attitudes of his opponents, and to en¬ 
list the support of the neutrals. The missionary is trying to 
displace old religious attitudes by new ones. 

When the various tendencies of a man are organized into 
a consistent whole we say that he has character. A man of 
good character has good attitudes; a man of bad character 
has undesirable attitudes; a man of no character may have 
attitudes but they are not organized, being contradictory, un¬ 
certain, undependable. Patients afflicted with certain forms 
of insanity may be said to have no character at all, since there 
is no counting on them. And because character is the organi¬ 
zation of attitudes, a well organized man can be depended 
on; we can predict the general form of his future conduct. 
We cannot know exactly what he will do or say, but we can 


ELLSWORTH FARIS 


37 

be very certain as to many things which he will neither do 
nor say. 

Attitudes result from action and predetermine action, but 
since action is toward objects, attitudes are inseparably con¬ 
nected with objects. An object may be defined as something 
toward which we know how to act, or what to say, since 
speech is a very important form of action. If a man does not 
know what to do with a thing or what to say about it, it is 
hardly an object to him. It may be a puzzle, a problem, a 
difficulty, or that which arouses curiosity, but hardly an ob¬ 
ject, certainly not an organized object. This point deserves 
emphasis. 

What is implied is not only that all objects are related to 
action but that all objects result from action, including talk¬ 
ing and writing. We have our objects as the result of our 
experience and all our objects are relative to that experience. 
This may sound paradoxical but it is, in fact, very familiar. 
What is the Bible? What sort of object is it? To the mili¬ 
tant society of the godless it is a book full of errors and super¬ 
stition and is worse than useless, being harmful. To the 
devout Christian the Bible is a light to the feet and a lamp 
to the path, holy, divinely given, to be treasured and revered. 
It is a different book to different people, depending on their 
attitudes. 

Now there was a time in the life of every Christian when 
the Bible was unknown and there was no attitude toward it. 
This book does not enter into the life of infants. A life 
history would not need to be impossibly detailed to permit 
the tracing of the first appearance of the Bible in the life ex¬ 
perience of the child, from the time when, as a little Sunday 
school pupil, it meant something but not very much, to the 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES 


38 

period when it came to have a rich meaning and a sacred 
character. 

Objects are thus relative to individual experience, but the 
uniqueness of the object is strictly limited and in the case of 
normal persons the sanction of a group is necessary and makes 
communication possible. Only among the paranoids and 
schizophrenes are objects wholly idiosyncratic. 

We may, therefore, think of attitudes and objects as two 
aspects of an established relation. Things that have never 
been eaten are made into food by those who decide to eat 
them, as love-apples became tomatoes. To get a new attitude 
is to acquire a new object or at least the transformation of an 
old object; to acquire a new object is to get a new attitude. 
Object and attitude are correlative. 

This may well bring us to the subject of religious attitudes. 
The attitudes of religious people differ from those of non¬ 
religious ones, else there would be no difference between re¬ 
ligious people and others. It is not easy to state just what 
the difference amounts to, for many who are not religious 
are admittedly kindly, honest, highly esteemed and of good 
character. In what respect, then, are the attitudes of religious 
people different ? The answer may lie in the consideration 
of the objects which are defined and emphasized in the differ¬ 
ent religious groups. The different religious denominations 
and sects have been compared to clans and tribes — spiritual 
clans and tribes of course — and each of these groups has se¬ 
lected certain objects, peculiar to itself in some degree. 

The religions of Japan and India are concerned with very 
different objects from those which occupy the attention of 
the Western world. In the Semitic religions, Judaism, Chris¬ 
tianity and Islam, we may discover certain common objects 


ELLSWORTH FARIS 


39 

and also many objects peculiar to each. They all accept the 
authority or value of the Hebrew scriptures, differing in their 
attitude toward other sacred writings. Each of the three 
grand divisions of Christianity, Roman Catholicism, Greek 
Catholicism and Protestantism, is obviously characterized 
by attention and devotion to characteristic objects, easy to 
set down in a list but too well known to warrant mention 
here. In America, where many differing Protestant sects 
have been formed, there is a characteristic selection of objects 
of attention for each group. Religious attitudes are thus 
group attitudes, or attitudes shared by differing groups, each 
attitude directed toward its own specific object. 

Some of these attitudes are positive and impose obligations 
to do certain things. The good Catholic attends mass, goes 
to confession, has his children christened, and summons the 
priest in the hour of death. The loyal Protestant attends 
church, supports missions, sends his children to the Sunday 
school. In the rituals and ceremonies and public services 
there have risen differences, some minor, others more im¬ 
portant. The value attached to these objects gives them a 
sacred character and each religious communion has some 
differences from every other. 

There are negative attitudes also, perhaps greater in num¬ 
ber than the positive and affirmative ones and of great im¬ 
portance in the life of each religious group. Indeed many 
of these groups might almost be distinguished by the things 
they do not do. Catholics do not eat meat on Friday, Jews 
avoid pork, many Protestant sects forbid the drinking of in¬ 
toxicants, to which the Mormons add tea and coffee. Con¬ 
servative religious groups are severe against “ worldliness,” 
meaning card games, dancing and the theater. The negative 


4 o 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES 


attitudes are important in relation to group consciousness 
and morale for they usually imply conflict, and conflict is an 
important condition of unity. The call to a better life and 
to good deeds has its appeal, but the summons to fight, even 
with spiritual weapons, is perhaps far more appealing. 

But even if we were to compile a complete list of all the 
church observances, ceremonies, rituals, and the acts of avoid¬ 
ance as well as the good works that are peculiar to religious 
folk, it would leave out of account the far greater number of 
the attitudes of Christians or even of the adherents of any of 
the civilized religions. 

If by religious attitudes we mean the attitudes or tendencies 
of religious people which distinguish them from the non¬ 
religious, it is necessary to include forms of speech. Spoken 
and written language are as truly forms of action as giving 
bread to the hungry or the rescue of a child from drowning. 
The exhortation to hold fast the form of sound words was 
no idle or unimportant precept, and religious phrases and 
statements, declarations and professions have, at least among 
Christian sects, always had an important place. The require¬ 
ment to talk in a certain manner is essential. Sometimes the 
required words represent professed intention to live in a 
certain way, but a very large part of the required verbal 
declarations represent statements which refer to specific his¬ 
torical events. There are a number of statements about the 
Prophet which every good Mohammedan must be prepared 
to make. A Mormon who will not declare that Joseph Smith 
received his revelation as recorded in the sacred book is in 
danger of being cut off. In some fundamentalist sects one 
must declare, if challenged, that the whale swallowed Jonah, 
that Eve held a conversation with a snake, and that a great 


ELLSWORTH FARIS 


4 1 

flood destroyed all but eight people some four thousand years 
ago. 

An unfriendly critic of Christianity has declared that the 
gospel in America (he was discussing only America) exists 
as something to be talked about and nothing more. While 
this may be set down as hyperbolic, yet the large part that 
verbal agreement does play is worthy of note. To declare 
that there is no God, or to deny the divinity of Christ, or to 
express disbelief in the virgin birth is often the most serious 
of offenses, more serious than an infraction of the moral law. 
This insistence on correct statements and declarations is, in¬ 
deed, held to have a close relation to conduct and the good 
life, but it would be difficult to establish the claim that one 
who insists that Jesus walked on the water or ascended into 
heaven is invariably superior in character to one who denies 
these statements. 

In this respect, the religions which sprang from the Jews 
differ from other religions, in which the emphasis tends to 
be on ceremonies and ritual. Indeed the religions of primi¬ 
tive people, from Eskimos to Bantus and Australian bush- 
men, attach no importance to verbal acquiescence. This 
verbal emphasis would seem to be due to the existence of 
a sacred inspired book whose every numbered sentence is 
widely held to be authoritative and unalterable. The out¬ 
standing exception appears to be in the writings of Confucius, 
who did not claim divine inspiration for his words. 

The existence of a sacred book has an interesting effect on 
the minds and characters of religious people. If absolute 
loyalty is demanded to its words and hearty acceptance of its 
precepts is required, there may arise difficulty when condi¬ 
tions change. Sometimes this results in a different interpre- 


42 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES 


tation of the text, as in the case of the anti-slavery reformers 
or the prohibition advocates. More often the words are left 
undisturbed and are even uttered and endorsed, while the 
practical life with its secular attitudes goes on in a separate 
compartment of the soul. 

Thomas Linacre, sometimes called the father of English 
medicine, was a noted scholar who flourished in the days of 
Henry VII and lived into the next reign. Of him it is told 
that he came upon the Greek Testament only when he had 
reached middle life. What he read amazed him. The Ser¬ 
mon on the Mount in particular was startling with its ex¬ 
hortations to humility and meekness, forgiveness of enemies 
and love of them. When he had finished reading he de¬ 
clared, “ Either this is not the gospel or we are not Chris¬ 
tians.” The second alternative was unwelcome to him so 
he discarded the book and refused to take any more interest 
in it. The more common tendency in our own time is to 
ignore the inconsistency and to lay chief stress so far as re¬ 
ligion is concerned on the form of words, meanwhile acting 
in the practical world as practical men. 

We have seen that religious attitudes are group attitudes 
and that each sect or religious group has its own characteristic 
religious objects and their corresponding attitudes with the 
resulting tendencies to action, sometimes verbal and some¬ 
times other forms of action. But it is also true that the atti¬ 
tudes and sentiments of the total community assume a re¬ 
ligious character. This has been a matter of interest and 
even of concern to students of the subject. It would be diffi¬ 
cult to avoid the conclusion that, for the most part, the ideals 
and values more often arise in the political state and are ac¬ 
cepted by the church than the reverse. There are some small 


ELLSWORTH FARIS 


43 

sects who hold out for a time and even for a long time, but 
they seem gradually to yield. The Quakers are unwilling 
to go to war and the Dunkers are unwilling to vote, but these 
are definite exceptions. Nationalism or war or social reform 
may become the objects of religious attitudes if religious men 
come to hold them as highly important. 

One of the functions of religion is clear: the giving of 
emotional sanction to the more intensely held sentiments and 
attitudes of a people. We are so formed that whatever is 
vital and imperative to us comes to have divine approval. 
Indeed it is almost psychologically impossible to devote one’s 
self with all the energy of one’s being to a cause which is con¬ 
sidered contrary to religious teaching. If war breaks out 
through the blunders of politicians or as a result of effective 
propaganda, it becomes necessary to justify the enterprise by 
assuming that it is approved by God. 

Examples of this type of conduct are very familiar but the 
following may be cited to make the discussion concrete. A 
Chicago daily paper published on June 17, 1940, two dis¬ 
patches, one from London and one from Rome. Both were 
dated June 16, which fell on a Sunday. The London story 
told of a sermon by the Roman Catholic Cardinal Hinsley 
delivered in Westminster cathedral that day, when high mass 
had been celebrated. He urged his hearers to “ pray, pray 
now, pray daily, pray always for France, since on God de¬ 
pends the victory.” He reminded them of the fact that their 
prayers had been marvelously answered at Dunkirk. The 
story from Rome told of a pastoral letter issued to his people 
by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Gorizia in which he 
urged the faithful to obey Premier Mussolini in the war he 
was waging for the welfare of the Italian people, who were 


44 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES 


seeking nothing other than the goal assigned to them by 
divine providence. 

The tendency to fight on the side of the Lord should not 
warrant any cynical condemnation of religion. If men risk 
their lives in fighting they must feel that their cause is justi¬ 
fied. And if the cause is just God must surely approve it. 
If there is any indictment it should be an indictment against 
human nature itself, though it must be admitted that a calm 
consideration of the facts might weaken the force of some 
of the more extravagant claims that are made in the name of 
religion. 

There was a Confederate chaplain in the Civil War who 
was reproached for not telling the men in his sermons that 
the Lord was on their side. His answer was doubtless ac¬ 
curate, however it differed from that of most chaplains. Said 
he: “ Sir, the Almighty has not informed me on which side 
of this conflict he has aligned himself.” Still, if soldiers be¬ 
lieve in the Lord and if they feel that he is fighting on the 
other side, one would expect their martial spirit to weaken. 
Religious feeling comes to the rescue of religious men when 
they do their utmost. Religion can thus be depended on to 
energize men more than to direct them to the right course 
of action. Ideally it should do both, but this is a world of 
very fallible men. 

We may say, then, that religious attitudes may be divided 
into two classes. The first of these includes those attitudes 
which are peculiar to a specific religious group, such as the 
attitude toward circumcision among the Jews or toward pac¬ 
ifism among the Quakers. These attitudes are maintained in 
spite of the opposition or indifference or at least the diver¬ 
gence of the rest of society. The source of these attitudes is 


ELLSWORTH FARIS 


45 

in the group or sect, and religious education, training and 
preaching serve to perpetuate them. 

The second class of attitudes consists of those shared by 
the community outside the church and often originating 
there. What gives them their religious character is the con¬ 
viction that they are vitally important and are therefore sanc¬ 
tioned in heaven. And while this sometimes leads to ap¬ 
peals to the same God by both sides of a conflict, it only calls 
attention to the fact that the world is far from united. Until 
there is agreement on what is right and just there can hardly 
be any concord as to the will of God, for God must approve 
the right and the just. When the Europeans accepted the 
God of the Hebrews they did not abandon all their customs; 
and the consciences of men, all men, bear a close relation 
to those ways of life that have been familiar and long ap¬ 
proved. 

It is true that men strive earnestly for the accomplishment 
of their purposes without making any claim that these pur¬ 
poses have the sanction of religion. If this were not true 
there would be no difference, at least in our society, between 
the religious and the non-religious. Some apologists have 
used this fact in the attempt to prove that all men are re¬ 
ligious, but such a conclusion leads to serious difficulties. It 
would make the professional thief or the efficient gangster 
a religious man, and the effect of such a contention would 
deprive our words of all meaning. 

We have tried to show that attitudes are the result of ex¬ 
perience and that they predetermine the generalized form 
of our conduct. Attitudes are directed toward objects, the ob¬ 
ject being the external aspect of the relation, the attitude be¬ 
ing the inner or subjective side. Religious attitudes are the 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ATTITUDES 


46 

attitudes of religious people that are concerned with religious 
objects and these religious objects are different in the differ¬ 
ing sects and religious groups. Religions are sometimes in 
conflict with other religions and this conflict brings theoreti¬ 
cal and practical difficulties. What is common to all religious 
attitudes is the accompanying sentiment and conviction that 
the object is sacred and precious and approved by the deity. 

When the ideals of the human race are unified, we may ex¬ 
pect all religions to be harmonious and there will no longer 
be religious strife. That this time will come has been the 
dream of the prophets. It is a most attractive dream. The 
prophets have been sure that such a day will dawn, but it 
hardly needs a prophet to tell us that it will not be in our 
time. 


V 


ECONOMIC GROUPISM AND 
THE CHURCH 


HENRY C. TAYLOR 



HE MAJOR economic problem in the United States to- 


day concerns maladjustments in the interoccupational 
distribution of incomes. Although problems of efficiency 
in production and of justice in distribution have long been 
with us, they have entered upon a new phase in the last 
twenty years. This new phase of the problem derives its 
major characteristics from the limitation of competition by 
organized groups. 

This groupistic activity has resorted to means of controlling 
income distribution which have seriously reduced efficiency 
in production. The more powerful groups may have gained 
something, but the less well organized groups and the unor¬ 
ganized groups have lost heavily, both because their share 
has been reduced and because the productivity of the nation 
has been reduced. This new phase of our economic life, 
which has here been called groupism, manifests itself espe¬ 
cially in the limitation of competition to control prices and 
wages. These groupistic controls are largely responsible for 
mass unemployment and for the acute phases of the Ameri¬ 
can youth problem. 

The term “ groupism ” is here used to designate group 
activity directed toward securing a share of the national in- 


47 


48 ECONOMIC GROUPISM AND THE CHURCH 

come which is more than commensurate with the services 
which the members of the group render to society. The 
term is not applied to group action in general but to those 
forms of group action by corporations, labor organizations, 
farmer organizations, bogus reformers and racketeers which 
are detrimental to the general welfare. This paper distin¬ 
guishes between desirable and undesirable group activity, 
encouraging the one and discouraging the other. 

With the growth of our national life, group action has 
more and more displaced individual action. During the early 
history of this country, economic relations were chiefly those 
of individuals. While these individuals were motivated by 
economic interest, their interrelations were personal and 
were tempered by religion and a sense of the brotherhood of 
man. Thus free enterprise, freedom of contract, freedom 
of speech, and the democratic form of government flour¬ 
ished; economic conflicts were relatively unimportant, and 
the distribution of wealth was reasonably just. 

But with the evolution of the economic life of the nation, 
the organized group has more and more replaced the indi¬ 
vidual. In many lines of production and distribution it has 
become increasingly difficult for the individual enterprise to 
compete with the group or corporate enterprise. This is due 
in part to the greater efficiency of large-scale production, but 
also in part to the greater effectiveness of the large-scale or¬ 
ganization in acquiring profits by the limitation of compe¬ 
tition. In the adjustment of economic relations, the corpora¬ 
tion has manifested too largely the characteristics of pure 
economic motivation, little restrained by those influences 
arising from close personal contacts with employees and cus¬ 
tomers and from religious motivations, which modify the 
economic motive in the individual economy. 


HENRY C. TAYLOR 


49 


Resistance to the power of the industrial corporation over 
its employees resulted in the organization of labor to protect 
its interests. Socially minded people favored the growth of 
labor organizations. The government has granted special 
privileges to labor with the hope of providing a means of in¬ 
suring justice by balancing the power of organized capital 
with the power of organized labor. But organized labor has 
not limited the use of its power to the attaining of social 
justice. Organized labor, just like organized capital, tries to 
get all it can for itself, even at the expense of potential fellow 
workers as well as of members of other groups. 

In overreaching the goals of efficiency in production and 
justice in distribution, capital and labor have produced an 
unbalanced distribution of the national income. The effec¬ 
tively organized groups have been able to demand too large 
a share and the unorganized elements have suffered. Farm¬ 
ers, unable individually to cope with this situation, have or¬ 
ganized and have secured government aid in their struggle 
for a fair share in the national income. Thus the economic 
struggle in modern life has taken the form of intergroup 
conflicts. Production has been limited to maintain prices; 
unemployment has been preferred to reduced wage scales 
while the unemployed swelled the relief rolls. Each group, 
striving to secure an ever larger share of the national income, 
receives less and less, because the methods of the intergroup 
conflict reduce the efficiency of the national economy. 

These limitations in production in the interest of main¬ 
taining price scales and wage scales have hindered the free 
entry of capital and labor into production. High wages in¬ 
duce high prices; high prices reduce consumption; reduced 
consumption leads to a reduction in the employment of capi¬ 
tal and labor in production. The application of the program 


5 ° 


ECONOMIC GROUPISM AND THE CHURCH 


of limitation of production to all fields brings idleness to 
much capital and labor and malnutrition and poverty to a 
large portion of the people. This is due not to the capitalistic 
system of free enterprise but to the paralyzing influence of 
groupism upon free enterprise. To solve our present eco¬ 
nomic problems we must eliminate the evils of groupism. A 
central problem is how to secure a balanced production of 
goods and services, and the exchange of these goods on a basis 
that will provide comparable real incomes for men of given 
skill and energy employed in different occupations. 

Our major economic difficulties have arisen because of our 
failure to hold in mind the goal set up by the Constitution. 
Under the theory of our government, individuals and groups 
are protected in the exercise of many rights and privileges. 
In return they have many obligations to society. Every right 
granted to individuals or groups should promote action in 
harmony with the general welfare. 

This, for example, is true of property rights. In accordance 
with the social theory of property, “ private property is a 
social trust.’ fl That is, private property is established and 
maintained for social purposes. Changing conditions may 
require the adjustment of property rights. The test for de¬ 
termining whether private property should be limited, ex¬ 
tended or abolished is the effect such action would have on 
the general welfare. The government grants privileges to 
a corporation for the same reason: it is a social trust. The 
grant is justified only in so far as the existence of the cor¬ 
poration aids society to function economically, socially or 
educationally to promote the general welfare. The grant to 
laborers of the privilege of concerted action is likewise a so¬ 
cial trust. The granting of this privilege is justifiable on 


HENRY C. TAYLOR 


5i 

the ground that society as a whole will benefit. Likewise, the 
right of farmers to organize to promote their common inter¬ 
ests can be justified only in so far as their group actions pro¬ 
mote the general welfare also. 

The use of capitalistic corporations, labor organizations or 
organizations of farmers for private gain should be permitted 
in so far as their economic activity promotes the general wel¬ 
fare. When a great corporation, because of its size and cor¬ 
porate form, can produce goods or render services more 
efficiently, and provides these goods and services to the con¬ 
sumers at a correspondingly lower cost, the grant of cor¬ 
porate powers is justifiable. But when, and in so far as, this 
corporate power is used to acquire additional profits for its 
possessors without rendering additional services, its activities 
should be restricted. The question is: How can society secure 
the benefits of the corporate form of economic organization 
without suffering the losses due to the limitation of pro¬ 
duction ? 

All that has been said of capitalistic corporations applies to 
labor organization. The right of labor to bargain collectively 
for a fair wage and reasonable working conditions is gener¬ 
ally conceded. On the other hand, the use of the power of 
the organization to secure for a privileged group better wages 
and working conditions than can be had generally by other 
workers of comparable skill and energy is harmful to the 
general welfare. Society looks upon unsocial action which 
reduces efficiency in production or unduly enhances costs 
to the consumers as bad, whether it be initiated by capitalists 
or by laborers. 

Farmers and laborers have claimed exemption from laws 
which are intended to hold group action in line with the gen- 


52 


ECONOMIC GROUPISM AND THE CHURCH 


eral welfare. They have endeavored to make a distinction 
between property rights and human rights and have argued 
that whereas capital-owning organizers and operators of 
business are rightly subject to public control as provided for 
in the anti-trust laws, agriculture and labor, because they sell 
their own labor or the products of their own labor, should be 
free to act in their own interest even in restraint of trade. 
That their exercise of “ human rights ” in restraint of trade 
deprives other people of their human rights, they have ap¬ 
parently overlooked. 

In fact, in the intergroup struggle it would seem that la¬ 
borers in particular have thought only of fighting capital, and 
have overlooked the effect of their action upon consumers 
and upon potential employees. The capitalists have usually 
been able to pass on to the consumer in the price of the goods 
any addition to wages of labor. This has been particularly 
easy where all the labor of a given line of production insists on 
the same wage rate and the same hours and working condi¬ 
tions in all plants owned by competing companies. Thus 
while labor organizations and the management of capital 
struggle over wage rates, the ultimate issue is between capi¬ 
tal and labor on the one hand as producers and the general 
public on the other hand as consumers. 

There is also another issue. When production is limited 
to the quantity of goods which will sell at the higher price, 
fewer people can be employed. Thus labor organizations, 
while helping some workers, may be damaging other poten¬ 
tial workers and throwing a relief burden upon the public 
composed of the same people who pay the excessive prices. 

It is socially desirable that farmers, industrial laborers and 
all other classes of working people have larger incomes so 


HENRY C. TAYLOR 


53 

that their standards of living may include all the advantages 
of modern civilization. To bring this to pass, every worker 
needs to produce more goods. When more goods of each 
kind are produced and an increasing variety of new kinds of 
goods and services are produced and exchanged on such a 
basis as will give all working people of comparable skill and 
energy fairly comparable real incomes, the well-being of the 
nation will be enhanced. On the other hand, when workers 
in one line of production insist on compensation that is two 
or three times as high as can be given in other occupations, an 
adequate supply of the goods of that occupation cannot be 
purchased. The resulting unbalance in production and dis¬ 
tribution is detrimental to society as a whole. 

When the limitation of production in industry raises prices 
and creates an army of unemployed, the farmer suffers from 
the reduced demand for his products because of the low buy¬ 
ing power of the unemployed. Because of the higher prices 
of the products of industry, he can buy less goods with the 
dollar he does receive. His first reaction is to ask the city 
industries to return to the system of free enterprise, produce 
competitively and efficiently, employ all workmen, produce 
more goods, and exchange them for more farm products. 
The strong resistance of both labor leaders and industrial 
management to this sound economic policy has resulted in 
the acceptance by farmers of the principle of restriction. 
With the help of the government, they have met with some 
success in the limitation of competition. They hope by this 
means to raise prices so that their products will exchange for 
city products on a fair basis. 

Thus it has come to pass that the three groups, capital, 
labor and agriculture, are all striving to get better incomes by 


54 ECONOMIC GROUPISM AND THE CHURCH 

producing less. Since it is obviously impossible for society 
as a whole to get more by producing less, these restrictive 
programs are in conflict with the interests of society as a 
whole. Many of the wisest men in all groups see the fallacy 
of the present program of limitation of production, but say: 
“ No one group can abandon the policy and turn to the 
economics of abundance unless the others do likewise.” The 
obvious answer is that the groups should come to a mutual 
understanding of this problem and cooperate in abandoning 
the restrictive system and in restoring free enterprise, with 
capital, wage and price competition safeguarded in the gen¬ 
eral interest. Such cooperative action would restore full em¬ 
ployment at increased average real wages for labor as a 
whole; it would put idle capital to work and allow the farm¬ 
ers to produce freely to their own advantage and to the ad¬ 
vantage of all consumers. 

The economic depression of the 1930’s resulted largely from 
limitation of competition through the control of the flow of 
capital, labor and goods, with a view to maintaining wage 
rates and prices. The continued mass unemployment of that 
period was not due to overproduction resulting from mech¬ 
anization; it was due to the limitation of competition. Many 
people would have liked to consume far more goods and 
wanted work in order to earn an income with which to buy 
more goods, but groupistic controls over capital and labor 
barred these people from normal activities in the economic 
life of the nation. 

If there had been freer flow of labor, capital and goods, and 
if each able-bodied person had been free to work for himself 
or for what someone else could afford to pay, producing 
goods and services that someone wanted, labor might have 


HENRY C. TAYLOR 


55 

been fully employed, the total production of goods greatly 
increased, the standards of living of the people raised, and 
the muscular and moral fiber of the people conserved. 

But this was not possible because of the paralyzing influ¬ 
ence of shortsighted groupism. Too often this unwise group 
action was aided and abetted by the government; in some 
cases its will was enforced by heavily armed racketeers. Pub¬ 
lic police power was at times overpowered by private police 
power, and anarchy prevailed. The government itself 
seemed by and large to move helplessly in whatever direc¬ 
tions it was impelled by the pressure of selfish groups. Social 
goals were forgotten by politicians who espoused class inter¬ 
ests with a view to re-election. Human resources were tragi¬ 
cally wasted. Mass poverty in the midst of plenty character¬ 
ized the decade. 

To solve this problem, balanced abundance through full 
employment must take the place of unbalanced scarcity and 
unemployment. To bring this to pass, selfish groupistic 
policies must be supplanted by statesmanlike national poli¬ 
cies. The only safe route is intergroup cooperation in formu¬ 
lating and effectuating national policies to replace separate, 
conflicting and paralyzing groupistic policies. If those in 
each group were all of one mind, enlightened self-interest 
should provide adequate motivation to accomplish this. But 
all are not of one mind. Under the present groupistic re¬ 
gime some individuals in each group are benefiting at the 
expense of many others of the same group. Those who bene¬ 
fit most, usually dominate the groupistic organizations. Not 
being imbued with the spirit of fair play within the group, 
they make intergroup cooperation difficult. The alternative 
to intergroup cooperation is the use of a strong hand by the 


56 ECONOMIC GROUPISM AND THE CHURCH 

government in promoting the general welfare by setting posi¬ 
tive limits to the sphere of action of all organized groups. 
Under the former policy, freedom, restricted primarily by 
wise self-control, may be enjoyed. Under the latter, public 
control takes the place of self-control and freedom disappears. 
But if the government should fail of the strength to control 
the groups, failure of intergroup cooperation and self-control 
would mean intergroup warfare and ultimate disaster for all. 

The major task is that of educating, democratizing and 
Christianizing the groups so that intergroup cooperation may 
succeed. An educational program will lead to a better un¬ 
derstanding of our complex economic life. This educational 
program should promote the application of the principles 
of social justice to intra- as well as inter-group action. An 
effective educational program would promote intergroup co¬ 
operation and thus help restore the principles of free enter¬ 
prise and parity of opportunity for those of equal skill and 
energy — essential principles of a democracy. 

Economics, although providing an understanding of these 
problems, will not solve them. For their solution the 
people, as individuals and as groups, must have righteous atti¬ 
tudes and emotions which will make them desire and pro¬ 
mote Christian principles in their economic relations with 
individuals, with groups and with society as a whole. Wal¬ 
lace has called this “ a religion of the general welfare.” 2 It 
is fundamental to a sane national economy. It is essential to 
international peace. 

The government, the greatest of cooperative undertakings, 
has important functions to perform in the economic life of 
the nation. First, it is the function of government to lay 
down the rules in accordance with which individuals or 


HENRY C. TAYLOR 


57 


groups may carry on business, and then to provide the police 
power to insure the enforcement of the rules. These rules 
must be in the interest of society as a whole. Unfortunately 
the government, by participating in the groupistic fight on 
the various fronts, has become a part of the groupistic struggle 
and thereby weakened its position in performing its proper 
functions. Connivance between group leaders and poli¬ 
ticians who disregard the public interest must be eradicated 
by an educated public opinion if the democratic form of gov¬ 
ernment is to survive. But everything should not be left to 
the government. Every individual and every group must 
help if we are to solve this problem of maintaining efficiency 
and justice in our economic life without sacrificing freedom 
and democracy. The individual and the group must pro¬ 
mote good citizenship both in government and in business. 

The church, by tempering the leadership and the member¬ 
ship of all groups with a religion of the general welfare, can 
do much to eliminate the evils of economic groupism. Un¬ 
fortunately churches, by taking sides in the intergroup strug¬ 
gle, have at times made the same mistake that the govern¬ 
ment has sometimes made. The churches can be helpful in 
the solution of this problem only by bringing their moral in¬ 
fluence and their teaching to bear upon all groups alike, in 
order that group action may be divested of its narrow selfish¬ 
ness and become adequately motivated by an interest in pro¬ 
moting the general welfare, which is at the same time the 
individual welfare of most of the people. 

The church can render its greatest service in this generation 
by preaching the gospel of the general welfare so vigorously 
and insistently that it will not only be heard but will become 
dominant in the minds of all group leaders, whether they 


58 ECONOMIC GROUPISM AND THE CHURCH 

be leaders of economic groups or of political groups. Since 
the antidote for groupism is intelligent intergroup coopera¬ 
tion motivated by a religion of the general welfare, econo¬ 
mists and ministers should work shoulder to shoulder to 
bring about this cooperation. Thus the problems of the 
groupistic regime could be solved without the dangers of 
anarchy on the one hand or of fascism on the other. 

Economics and religion both have to do with the adjust¬ 
ment of the individual to his environing world. They are 
both concerned with the adjustment of the intra- and inter¬ 
relations of family, social, industrial and political groups. 
Economics deals with those relations which arise out of the 
activities of men in their efforts to satisfy their desires for 
food, clothing, shelter, education, recreation, and other forms 
of goods and services. Religion deals with those values 
which make the life of the individual and of society abundant 
in the things most worth while, from the standpoint both of 
the present generation and of future generations. Economics 
focuses upon personal gain; religion focuses upon the quality 
of life of the individual and of the race. 

When economists who are thinking in terms of the general 
welfare and religious leaders who see beyond the confines of 
a given church in a given denomination learn to work to¬ 
gether, the vision and the goals of human progress may be 
clarified, and activity promoted which will further the high¬ 
est present ideals of life and the ideals which may grow out 
of these activities. The clarification of human relations and 
the dynamics of vital Christian motivation will cure the ills 
of groupism and achieve a Christian civilization. 

In spite of many discouraging elements in the situation, 
hopeful signs can be found. Leaders of many corporations 


HENRY C. TAYLOR 


59 

have sought better public relations in recent years. This may 
open the way for intergroup discussions looking toward in¬ 
tergroup cooperation in promoting the common interests. 
Labor leaders, counting upon the sympathy of the public for 
the working man, have gone too far in recent years in disre¬ 
garding the consumer, and public opinion is beginning to 
demand of them more consideration of the public interest. 
Workers themselves have shown some tendency to rid their 
organizations of the worst elements in their leadership. The 
farm group, which has never been entirely convinced of the 
desirability of limiting production, will be ready to abandon 
the restrictive program at any time when capital and labor are 
ready to harmonize their group efforts with the general wel¬ 
fare. Representatives of these three groups have been con¬ 
sidering plans for quietly getting together for the purpose of 
considering their common interests, with the hope of re¬ 
ducing conflicts. 

Conditions like these give ground for the hope that prog¬ 
ress may be made in the next few years in eradicating the 
evils without relinquishing the benefits of group action. This 
hope should encourage economists and religious teachers to 
redouble their efforts to clarify the vision and motivate the 
action of all the people in the interest of the general welfare, 
to the end that efficiency in production may be accompanied 
by justice in distribution as the essential basis of a better life 
for all the people. 


NOTES 

1 Richard T. Ely, Property and Contract (The Macmillan Co., 1914)* Vol. 1, 
Chap. VI. 

2 Henry A. Wallace, Paths to Plenty (National Home Library Foundation, 
Washington, D. C., 1938). 


VI 


RELIGIOUS VALUES IN COOPERATIVES 


LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE 


HRISTIAN MISSIONS in China have always been 



faced with the problem of economic relief to the people. 
Free relief is a hopeless task but must be resorted to in cer¬ 
tain cases and in times of great catastrophes. The Christian 
missionary is thus continually faced with the problem of 
how to help the people economically and at the same time 
make their economic life facilitate their Christian living. In 
the past ten years the Chinese government has done a great 
deal for the economic improvement of the lot of the people. 
Consequently, while there is plenty that remains to be done, 
the missionary’s effort should be directed more and more to¬ 
ward Christianization of economic life. 

The cooperative form of economic organization is very 
suitable for this purpose. Consumers’ cooperation made a 
successful start with a store at Rochdale, England, in 1844. 
A decade later cooperative agricultural credit societies were 
satisfactorily organized in Germany. In the 1880’s coopera¬ 
tive marketing by farmers was begun in Denmark. These 
three forms of cooperation have proved very effective means 
of improving the economic condition of the city worker and 
the farmer. In 1937 there were 810,500 cooperative societies 
of all types throughout the world. In these societies were 


60 


LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE 


61 


143,261,000 members. The total cooperative trade was U. S. 
$i8,6oo,ooo,ooo. 1 

The cooperative movement started in China in 1918 and 
1919 with credit, consumer and producer cooperatives. Con¬ 
sumer and productive cooperatives were first promoted by 
Kuomintang leaders who gave political backing for the 
whole movement. Having proved very successful in India 
and Japan, the farmers’ credit societies were first started by 
missionaries in north China, by the China International Fam¬ 
ine Relief Commission in which missions cooperated, and by 
the University of Nanking. Through promotion by these 
agencies and by provincial government cooperative commis¬ 
sions, the number of cooperative societies in China increased 
rapidly from one in 1918, to 722 in 1928, to 37,318 at the end 
of 1936, and to 90,738 societies with over 4,000,000 members 
in February 1940. In 1938 the agricultural credit societies 
were 86 per cent of all societies in China. Loans to these 
societies during 1939 totaled Chinese $140,109,321, of which 
$65,131,272 had been repaid. 

The newest development in the cooperative movement in 
China is the association called “ Chinese Industrial Coopera¬ 
tives ” which now has about 1,500 societies with 18,000 mem¬ 
bers and a production amounting to Chinese $4,000,000 per 
month in 15 provinces of free China, reaching from Lanchow 
in Kansu to the outskirts of Canton in Kwantung. The 
Bank of China has now set aside $20,000,000 for loans to in¬ 
dustrial cooperatives during 1940 at the same rate of interest 
as to the agricultural credit societies, 9.6 per cent per annum. 
In other words, both the agricultural credit societies and the 
industrial cooperatives have proved themselves a business 
success in China. 


62 


RELIGIOUS VALUES IN COOPERATIVES 


But even with this rapid growth of cooperatives there are 
very few persons in the country who have a real understand¬ 
ing of what cooperation really means. Much better training 
of members in the true meaning of cooperation is urgently 
needed. 


I. CHRISTIAN LIFE NEEDS ORGANIZATION 

As Professor C. E. M. Joad of the University of London 
says: 

It is extremely difficult to be a good man in a bad community. Since 
the form of our moral judgments is determined by our environment, a 
member of a bad community will hold actions to be right which are 
not right, and judge consequences to be valuable which are not valu¬ 
able. Admittedly, he may be morally virtuous to the extent that he 
may try to do the good that he sees, but, if his community is bad, he 
will lack that faculty of right valuation which enables him justly to 
appraise the value of the consequences of, his actions. 2 

If a man is a member of an organization working for pri¬ 
vate profit, he will work for private profit. If he is a mem¬ 
ber of an organization working for the common good, he 
is more likely to work for the common good. 

Therefore, as I stated at the Disciples’ World Convention 
at Leicester, England, in 1935, the Christian program, on the 
mission field as elsewhere, involves three fundamental ap¬ 
proaches: living of a Christlike life by the individual, help¬ 
ing all those in need, and organizing all life into a Christian 
brotherhood. While character is fundamental to all the rest, 
all three of these approaches so interact with one another 
that argument regarding priority is beside the point. In 
general, the first two have been more commonly recognized 
by Christians in efforts at evangelism and practical philan- 


LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE 


63 

thropy. While the conscious recognition of the third phase 
is quite recent, its presence has been shown in the many at¬ 
tempts at local Christian brotherhoods throughout Christian 
history. 

Christian leaders have always been suspicious of economic 
enterprise, especially of the trader and the money-lender, 
but little has been done except to preach against it. Now, 
“ the chief battleground between good and evil is at the heart 
of the economic order and there the battle must be won or 
lost.” 3 A reorganization of the economic order is needed 
not only to relieve poverty but also to make it possible for 
individuals to live a more complete Christian life. Coopera¬ 
tive economic organization is a great help in attaining both 
those objectives. 


II. COOPERATIVES AID RELIEF WORK 

Cooperatives were first started in China on a large scale 
as means to constructive relief work. The China Interna¬ 
tional Famine Relief Commission, which began its work with 
the flood sufferers in north China in 1921, decided that co¬ 
operative credit societies were not only the best means for 
putting the farmers back on their feet after the losses from the 
flood, but also would meet a real need during normal times. 
The flood in the Yangtze river valley in 1931 led them and 
others to extend their work of organizing cooperatives to that 
area. The Chinese government met the devastation, as well 
as the communist ideology in areas retaken from the com¬ 
munists in Kiangsi in 1933, by promoting cooperatives as a 
means of aiding the farmers and winning their allegiance. 
We were able to make very little use of cooperatives as a 
means of relief to farmers around Nanking after its fall to 


64 RELIGIOUS VALUES IN COOPERATIVES 

the Japanese because of Japanese opposition to such work. 
In free China, industrial cooperatives have been very suc¬ 
cessfully organized among many worker refugees from war 
areas. In “ occupied territory ” some industrial cooperatives 
have been organized and many agricultural credit societies 
are able to carry on in areas beyond the reach of Japanese 
guns. 

My first interest in the rickshamen’s cooperative and the 
wool weaving cooperative, which we organized in Nanking 
in 1933 and 1935, was a relief interest. Where suitable oc¬ 
cupations can be found, cooperatives are the most construc¬ 
tive form of relief. They are even better than “ work relief ” 
because they are more permanent and organize the workers 
to carry on their own business. Funds loaned to a coopera¬ 
tive are returned and become self-perpetuating so that the 
people are really “ off relief ” and the funds are available to 
help others. Because of this banks are interested in loan¬ 
ing to them and thus much larger funds can be secured. Co¬ 
operatives are real self-help and thereby increase the self- 
respect of the individuals concerned. Individuals are in a 
better economic position when conducting their own busi¬ 
ness as a group instead of remaining separate individuals 
hunting for work. Entirely apart from the benefit to the 
members, cooperatives in China have proved of great social 
value because they provide a much healthier outlet for bank 
funds than is furnished by land speculation in the foreign 
settlements. It is a basic requirement of any form of eco¬ 
nomic relief that to be lasting it must be a sound economic 
solution of people’s difficulties. 


LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE 


65 


III. COOPERATIVES A HIGHER ORDER OF VALUE 

But cooperatives are more than either a relief measure or a 
sound economic improvement. They are a more moral and 
equitable form of economic organization than either small 
capitalist enterprise as found in most of China or monopoly 
capitalism as found in America. C. R. Fay, professor of eco¬ 
nomic history at Cambridge University and well known 
analyst of the cooperative movement, states this point in the 
following terms: 

It associates economic enterprise with moral values of a distinctive 
order. It is business motivated by a desire for social betterment with 
all the risks of failure and fullness of reward which such a combina¬ 
tion presents. It comes midway between movements of pure philan¬ 
thropy in which business plays no part, and movements in which com¬ 
mercial advantage is the declared purpose; and by appealing to the 
altruism in man, it commands from its members, servants and friends 
effort which exceeds their personal reward. ... A cooperative 1 society 
is a voluntary association in which people organize democratically to 
supply their needs through mutual action, in which the motive of 
production and distribution is service, not profit, and in which it is 
the aim that performance of useful labor shall give access to the best 
of rewards. 4 

How the different nature of the cooperative affects its busi¬ 
ness is best shown by the four “ Rochdale Principles.” These 
are: (1) Open membership; (2) democratic control, or one 
member, one vote; (3) dividends distributed in proportion 
to patronage; and (4) limited interest on share capital. 

There are four fundamental reasons why cooperatives are 
a higher order of value than capitalistic enterprises: 

First, cooperatives eliminate the practice of a few profiting 
from the many because profits are divided according to pa- 


66 


RELIGIOUS VALUES IN COOPERATIVES 


tronage or use. In a consumers’ cooperative store this is in 
proportion to purchases during the year. In an industrial 
cooperative it is usually in proportion to wages earned dur¬ 
ing the year. In other words, the “ profit ” is returned to those 
who made it. Consequently, even the dividends to members 
of industrial and marketing cooperatives are not profits on 
the labor of others nor on capital invested. However, capital 
is paid its just “ wage ” in the form of a limited dividend 
equivalent approximately to the minimum rate of interest at 
which funds could be borrowed locally. Ethically, we would 
say cooperatives are more equitable. 

Second, cooperatives organize collective economic action 
but retain the principle that the individual is the chief ethical 
end. This is a result of its democratic control because a co¬ 
operative is an organization of members rather than an or¬ 
ganization of shares. Its practice is “ one member, one vote ” 
rather than the capitalistic practice of “ one share, one vote.” 
In such a democratic organization, “personality is valor¬ 
ized.” Contrast this with the 

trend of modern industry towards autocracy, an enlightened autocracy, 
perhaps, with generosity and just dealing behind it, but emphatically 
not a manifestation of control from below. Cooperators believe, and 
their case assumes, that such democracy is a good thing in itself. 5 

Third, cooperatives inspire individual initiative but direct 
it into serving the larger group. Cooperators set out to help 
themselves and not to seek state aid. All they ask of the state 
is fair enabling legislation. “ Cooperation is organized lib¬ 
erty.” 6 And as Mr. T. W. Mercer, a well known English 
cooperator, states, “ liberty is the sole guarantee of continuing 
economic efficiency in the cooperative movement.” 7 As long 


LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE 


67 

as societies are under necessity of securing patronage on their 
merits, there cannot be any serious fall in their general level 
of efficiency. But instead of giving the benefits of this indi¬ 
vidual initiative to a few, the resulting gains are distributed 
among the members whose use of the society made the 
“ profits ” possible. Thus the cooperatives combine unity 
and liberty. 

Fourth, cooperatives require education of members because 
of their democratic principle of operation. This brings a 
cultural interest back into business enterprise. It is educa¬ 
tion in cooperative principles and how to manage their own 
business rather than merely how to perform a particular job 
to the better profit of the owner. Cooperators learn by do¬ 
ing. Professor Fay says that even if cooperation brought no 
economic advantage to members it would still be a social 
gain that they are in successful business for themselves. It 
is a school of self-government and at the same time produces 
a more equal distribution of wealth. Mr. W. K. H. Campbell, 
former League of Nations adviser in cooperation to the Chi¬ 
nese government, says the same thing of the poor peasant 
cultivator who becomes a member of an agricultural credit 
cooperative: “At first, they survey the results of their own 
action with half-incredulous amazement, but gradually the 
conviction is borne in upon them that they are not nearly 
such helpless creatures as they had always been accustomed 
to suppose.” 8 Most ethical writers agree that the living of 
the good life entails the full development of the best elements 
in the personality. Cooperatives do this. 

To these four basic improvements of cooperative economic 
organization over capitalistic organization, I might add a 
few words about the cooperative strategy of social change 


68 


RELIGIOUS VALUES IN COOPERATIVES 


which differentiates it from many other movements for socio¬ 
economic change today, (i) Cooperatives are voluntary and 
based on reason and persuasion. Therefore they spread with¬ 
out coercion. Members join the society voluntarily and are 
free either to stay in the organization or withdraw from it. 
They are under no compulsion to purchase from their so¬ 
ciety. And what is a greater difference from capitalistic chain 
stores and combines, the retail society is under no compul¬ 
sion to purchase from the cooperative wholesale society of 
which it is itself a member. (2) Cooperatives can start small 
and grow big. Some will ask if this is particularly Christian. 
But surely in a day when so much emphasis is placed by other 
socio-economic movements on “ getting power,” a movement 
that can start with a statutory minimum of seven members, 
as in China, and has the capacity to spread over the whole 
country and, through the International Cooperative Alliance 
and future international wholesales, the whole world, is closer 
to the spirit of him who could found his church on groups 
“ wherever two or three are gathered together.” These two 
characteristics together mean that (3) cooperatives bring 
about a peaceful social revolution. This is because “ coopera¬ 
tion touches no man’s fortune, seeks no plunder,” as another 
early interpreter of cooperation, George Holyoake, put it. 
Rather, cooperation seeks to build up within the old order a 
new system which creates its own wealth as it goes. Not only 
does cooperation eschew all forms of confiscation but it also 
seeks no “ gifts ” through socialistic legislation which taxes 
the rich to benefit the poor. 9 

Now if we accept Professor Wieman’s theory of value, that 
“ the process by which the world is made better is the form¬ 
ing of connections of mutual support, mutual control, and 


LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE 


69 

mutual facilitation between appreciable activities,” 10 it is 
quite evident that all cooperative activities are “ appreciable.” 
The above summary shows that there is more mutual sup¬ 
port, mutual control and mutual facilitation between these 
appreciable activities in the cooperative organization of eco¬ 
nomic life than in the capitalistic organization. Further¬ 
more, on the score of democratic control, individual initiative, 
education, voluntary and peaceful social change, the coopera¬ 
tive movement is better than either the fascist, National So¬ 
cialist or communist movements for socio-economic improve¬ 
ment. It is true that these other movements attempt to use 
cooperatives as a means of state control and many govern¬ 
ments are now tending toward the same practice. But true 
cooperation is voluntary. State regimentation is quite an¬ 
other thing. At the same time, cooperation meets another 
test of value in that it can achieve universality through open 
membership and through federation. 

At present, it is true that its universality of application is 
partly limited by a division in function between the con¬ 
sumers’ cooperatives and agricultural marketing or industrial 
cooperatives. But cooperators think that through its funda¬ 
mental interest in equity and liberty, the cooperative move¬ 
ment can work out solutions for these problems. 11 

In order to preserve its principles of democracy and liberty, 
cooperation admits that it cannot integrate all economic ac¬ 
tivity and must leave certain economic processes to a market 
relation. But in this minimum of a free market they see a 
better chance for both efficiency and respect for human values 
than in a state-controlled system. Furthermore, they admit 
that there are rights of society as a whole which fall within 
the sphere of government. And in China, while putting my 


70 


RELIGIOUS VALUES IN COOPERATIVES 


available energies into the cooperative movement, I realize 
that good government is just as important and that the work 
of James Yen and his colleagues in improving hsien (county) 
government in China may bring as much benefit to the 
farmers and workers as cooperatives. While cooperatives 
may not provide a grand scheme by which all economic, so¬ 
cial and political problems can be solved, the cooperative 
movement does show how to combine democracy with the 
elimination of profit — in the sense of exploiting the labor of 
others or large returns on invested capital — and efficient 
business operation. In twenty-five years a cooperative whole¬ 
sale was built up in Sweden that could break the prices of 
trusts dealing in galoshes, bread, matches and light bulbs. 
The cooperatives in Sweden now handle 20 per cent of the 
entire retail and wholesale trade of the country and 10 per 
cent of its manufacturing. 12 In England, six million out 
of eleven million families do part of their domestic purchas¬ 
ing in a cooperative store. 13 Given an extensive application 
of that solution, many of our political and social problems 
will be more easily solved. 

IV. CHRISTIANITY AND COOPERATIVES 

Both the Christian movement and the cooperative move¬ 
ment face the same problem: how to persuade individuals 
to desire to do what they think right and to think right what 
is in fact right. Proper organization will greatly encourage 
individuals to act in this way and will make it easier for 
them to do so. But the fact remains that every cooperative 
society must have a nucleus of members who are honest, 
hard-working and sincerely interested in cooperative prin¬ 
ciples. Otherwise its constitution will be so twisted in prac¬ 
tice that the result will be far from the cooperative ideal. 


LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE 


7i 

Education in cooperative principles helps in bringing about 
this devotion to making better business a part of better liv¬ 
ing. And it may become almost a religion with some people! 
As one government leader recently told a relief worker, in 
China there is a great lack of the service motive outside of 
Christian and communist circles! In wartime when the na¬ 
tion seems to have found its soul, there is considerable re¬ 
duction of this difficulty. But every attempt at either social 
reform or social, economic and political reconstruction faces 
this problem. The cooperative movement envisages a com¬ 
paratively long and slow process for reducing capital to the 
service of man. Any short cut may bring greater disaster and 
misery than real gain to the masses. On the other hand, “ in¬ 
difference may stifle, or skepticism paralyze, the attempt to 
build up this better state of higher forms of social institutions 
freely developed.” 14 Therefore, the cooperative movement 
will benefit from a religious movement that deals with the 
fundamental relations existing among men and with the uni¬ 
versal power whereby man is sustained in his effort for im¬ 
provement of his life and that of his fellows. 15 

If religion and especially Christianity can get people to 
commit themselves to finding the highest good for all man¬ 
kind, to feel a sense of sin in not perfectly attaining it (and 
therefore be less critical of others), and to have a world¬ 
transforming interest, it will help the cooperative movement 
as well as all movements working for human improvement. 16 
Since evangelization in this sense has proved to be a very slow 
process, it is necessary as well as natural, because of the inter¬ 
action between individual character and social organization, 
to carry on both movements, the Christian and the coopera¬ 
tive, at the same time. In this way these two great move¬ 
ments for the welfare of mankind can now help each other. 


72 


RELIGIOUS VALUES IN COOPERATIVES 


The cooperatives can offer the churches and missions the tech¬ 
nique whereby to practice brotherhood in the economic 
realm, and the churches can provide the individuals in co¬ 
operatives with the dynamic of the Christian religion for 
good character and for strengthening the practice of the idea 
of service and brotherhood. 

Shall the church as a church put itself on the side of the 
cooperative order as opposed to the present capitalistic order ? 
While many enthusiasts for cooperation may feel that the 
ethics of cooperation are so much closer to Christianity than 
the ethics of capitalism that there should be no question about 
the church’s choice, there are many in the church who do not 
feel so. In this I prefer to follow the Christian social philos¬ 
ophy suggested by Professor H. N. Wieman in Normative 
Psychology of Religion that the church should stimulate its 
members to open-minded consideration of all the moral issues 
involved but should leave these members as small or large 
groups to organize as they see fit for carrying out any political 
or economic actions. 17 However, if the members of any par¬ 
ticular local church can agree to form a local credit union 
or health or mutual aid association, they should be free to 
do so. This is particularly true since the cooperatives do 
not require political action. 18 

In working with cooperatives on the mission field, I have 
urged that so far as possible mission and church workers 
should concentrate their efforts on social education of co¬ 
operative members. This is where the religious worker can 
make his chief contribution, rather than in technical fields. 
But social education should include cooperative principles 
and the bearing of religion and ethics upon the principles and 
practice of cooperation. 19 


LEWIS S. C. SMYTHE 


73 


NOTES 

1 Co-operative Societies Throughout the World, Numerical Data (International 
Labor Office, Geneva, Swtz., 1939), pp. 18, 58. Of the above totals, 286,600 
societies, 60,389,000 members and $8,850,000,000 trade were in the U. S. S. R. 

2 C. E. M. Joad, Guide to the Philosophy of Morals and Politics (Victor Gol- 
lancz, Ltd., London, 1938), pp. 466-67. 

3 Henry Nelson Wieman and Regina Westcott-Wieman, Normative Psychology 
of Religion (Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1935), p. 124. 

4 C. R. Fay, Cooperation at Home and Abroad (P. S. King & Son, London, 
1939), n, 41. 

5 Ibid. 

6 Ibid., p. 42. 

7 Cited by V. S. Allane, Fundamentals of Consumer Cooperation (Northern 
States Cooperative League, Minneapolis, 1936), p. 27. I have also indicated the 
place of Mercer’s principles in my analysis. 

8 W. K. H. Campbell, Cooperation for Economically Undeveloped Countries 
(League of Nations, Geneva, Swtz., 1938), p. 38. This is a booklet prepared espe¬ 
cially on the basis of the author’s work in China. 

9 Thomas Hughes, Foundations, A Study in the Ethics and Economics of the 
Co-operative Movement (The Co-operative Union, Manchester, Eng., 1879; re¬ 
vised ed., 1916), p. 58. 

10 Henry Nelson Wieman and Walter Marshall Horton, The Growth of Religion 
(Willett, Clark & Co., 1938), p. 330. 

11 Cf. F. Hall and W. P. Watkins, Co-operation, A Survey of the History, 
Principles, and Organisation of the Co-operative Movement in Great Britain and 
Ireland (The Co-operative Union, Manchester, Eng., 1934), pp. 315-17; and Fay, 
op. cit., I, 267-68. 

12 Marquis W. Childs, Sweden: The Middle Way (Yale University Press, 1936), 
pp. 12-13, 24, 33-4i- 

13 Fay, op. cit., II, 111. 

14 Hughes, op. cit., pp. 132-33. 

15 Ibid., p. 30. 

16 I am here following H. N. Wieman’s description of the marks of the dis¬ 
tinctively religious way which he thinks underlies devotion to any specific moral 
ideals (cf. Wieman and Horton, op. cit., pp. 287-97). 1 have taken the liberty of 
combining Wieman’s “ great decision ” and “ unspecific objective ” in my statement 
of commitment. 

17 H. N. Wieman and R. Westcott-Wieman, op. cit., pp. 216-26, 522-30. 

18 In this and the first section of this paper I have followed very closely some 
statements I made in an article on “ Cooperatives in a Christian Social Order ” 
which I published in the Chinese Recorder, Dec. 1936. 

19 Recently developed in an article, “ Cooperatives and Christian Missions,” 
soon to appear in the Chinese Recorder. 


VII 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ACTION 

MARGUERITTE HARMON BRO 

"DECENTLY in one of the largest of the counties which 
front the northern border of our United States there 
occurred an amazing example of the church in what we have 
come to call “ social action ” — amazing for its temerity, for 
its practicality, for its success. A minister of scholarly achieve¬ 
ment, as sensitive to social influences as litmus paper to an 
agent, decided that his town and countryside had had enough 
of the slot machine racket and all its flailsome appendages. 
But in order to clean up the town he had to buck his friends 
the various storekeepers and his friends the resort-keepers 
and their many dependents, all of whom profited by the slot 
machines. Not only to buck these fellow townsmen, but to 
buck them so openly, so logically, so righteously that he and 
his church could still exist in the community. Moreover, 
to get purchase on the local problem, he had to clean up the 
rest of the county with its indifferent county board and its 
inactive judiciary. The minister was seventy years old. What 
he lacked in youthful energy he made up in wisdom com¬ 
pounded of humor, experience and knowledge of the law. 

On the first Sunday of the campaign when the minister ad¬ 
dressed his congregation on the subject of slot machines, one 
seemed to see Isaiah standing at his right hand and Amos 
at his left, while the three of them gave that congregation 

74 


MARGUERITTE HARMON BRO 


75 


a vision of the holiness of God in terms of social righteous¬ 
ness. They talked about sin, sin in the group which directly 
profited by slot machines and sin in the group which coun¬ 
tenanced their corroding influence in the community. To be 
sure, the minister used some of the modern phrases about 
“ environmental influences ” and “ subconscious motiva¬ 
tions/’ but he was not speaking for modern science that day; 
he was speaking for God. 

At the end of four months of consistent labor there were 
no more slot machines operating in that county nor have they 
returned in a year and a half. 

There are three things of note about that particular social 
action campaign: (i) In spite of the minister’s sermons, a 
relatively large proportion of the members of his small church 
were not too sure about the God who was being preached 
to them. They had no great vision of his holiness; they had 
no keen sense of social responsibility; they were not perma¬ 
nently overwhelmed by a sense of their sin. (2) In the midst 
of the campaign for social righteousness, that minister took 
an occasional hour out to make long distance calls about 
selling some stocks which were taking a flop on the market. 
(3) Relatively few of the church members worked on the 
slot machine cleanup but those few were enough. These 
three facts yeast disturbingly in the mind of one who believes 
that the church has a necessity laid upon it to express itself 
in social action. 

Relative to the first fact — that the minister had a difficult 
time, in spite of marshaling the assistance of the prophets, 
in convincing his congregation of the holiness of God and 
the sinfulness of man — one ponders anew on what has hap¬ 
pened to the vision of God which prostrated Isaiah with reali- 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ACTION 


76 

zation of his own unworthiness, filled him with holy zeal 
and authenticated his mandate of social responsibility. There 
was a time in the life of the church when, however slow men 
might be to acknowledge their sins, they at least believed in 
the vision of God. Certainly the vision was never over¬ 
thrown by evolution nor banished by fiat but nevertheless it 
has as largely disappeared from American life as have our 
natural forests, our top soil and our Indian pennies. 

The dimming of a vision can seldom be dated, partly be¬ 
cause it never happens instantaneously in one place nor si¬ 
multaneously in many places. There is always a time and 
space lag complicated by the group process of becoming self- 
conscious and articulate. But perhaps among the first men to 
tamper destructively, although innocently, with the prophet’s 
idea of God was the daring Florentine named Galileo, whose 
curious contraption of tube and lenses began to pluck from 
the skies four moons for Jupiter and other arguments for the 
immensities of the universe and the earth’s humble place 
among the planets. Immediately the church, in valiant self¬ 
protection, outlawed a cosmology which made man so in¬ 
finitesimal in a universe so vast. To be morally responsible, 
man needed to be more obviously the center of his God’s 
concern. But through the decades the church has had to 
make room not only for Galileo but also for Kepler and New¬ 
ton, hammering further dimensions for space, giving new 
properties to matter; for Comte, Descartes, Kant, Locke, 
daring to predicate laws for the mind as well as for the outer 
universe; for Darwin, reading humanity’s life story from 
primordial ancestors; for Schliemann and Brugsch, stretch¬ 
ing time into incredible yesterdays and unimaginable to¬ 
morrows; for Leeuwenhoek, Pasteur, Koch, lifting out their 


MARGUERITTE HARMON BRO 


77 

microscopic universes. Space-time, matter-energy, mind- 
body— man and his entire outreach governed by laws he 
could do comparatively little about. Physical sciences, bio¬ 
logical sciences, social sciences all saying to the religious man, 
“ What do you mean, a 4 personal ’ God ? What do you 
mean, man responsible for his own actions, let alone respon¬ 
sible for the actions of his neighbors ? ” 

At last the religious man, in some embarrassment, felt 
compelled to answer honestly if somewhat wistfully, 44 1 sup¬ 
pose you are right, you scientists, although — although — 
there are moments when something within me seems to 
transcend your findings, moments when I lay hold on power 
which emanates from something beyond the categories.” 

But it is difficult even for a religious man long to hold him¬ 
self morally responsible in a universe whose morality at best 
seems predicated upon a mere hunch, upon an intuition of 
ethical grandeur. Difficult, and not conspicuously successful. 
If the preponderance of findings by the wisest men of the 
time fails to supply a sufficient basis for the concept of a per¬ 
sonal God and a moral universe, then where today may the 
religious man get his imperative for social action? 

He has at least three possibilities, and they are not mutu¬ 
ally contradictory. He may stubbornly and not illogically 
hold that the vision of God, delineable in satisfactorily intel¬ 
lectual and scientific terms, is only veiled for a time behind 
incommunicable certainties. There are the new physicists 
opening new doors with their present conclusion that matter 
is energy which does not behave with strict causality. Is there 
then a possible margin where 44 spirit ” and 44 matter ” are 
interpenetrable, where the imponderables may govern the 
more easily measurable aspects of nature? Certainly it is 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ACTION 


78 

hard to assay a categorical “ no ” so long as there remains the 
whole realm of secondary qualities which Galileo never got 
around to and no one since has really got around to; the 
qualitative imponderables which should never have been ab¬ 
stracted, perhaps, from “ things.” May there not yet be a 
new language, as serviceable as mathematics has been to 
science, which will express experiences of thought, beauty, 
sorrow, joy — and ultimately of God? Also, beside the ad¬ 
vance-guard physicists, there are the mystics whose vision 
continues to appear no less powerful and no less contagious 
after the empiricist has explained it away. 

There is a second group, also religious, who find their im¬ 
perative for social action in man himself. The fact that man¬ 
kind feels the impulse for brotherhood is justification enough, 
they think, for its necessity in society. If men are able to 
vision a just society, are able to devise schemes for giving 
the vision actuality, and are also able to apply themselves 
selflessly toward that end, then the kingdom of heaven on 
earth is altogether possible if not imminent. The evolution¬ 
ary process of a struggle toward perfection is no slower and 
no less “ divine,” they feel, than a dispensation from Perfec¬ 
tion. Men may choose brotherhood not because of any 
supernatural fatherhood which supposedly motivates a way 
of life in which all children of God are members of one fam¬ 
ily, but because they are happier when dwelling together as 
brethren. Or at least they believe, from their experience in 
small areas of brotherhood, that widening the scope would 
eventually spell spiritual well-being and happiness for all. 
Certainly there is sufficient imperative for social action in so 
courageous and honest an affirmation of the transcendent pos¬ 
sibilities of human nature. The proof of the imperative lies 
in the lives of great humanitarians who so believe and so act. 


MARGUERITTE HARMON BRO 


79 

But there is a third and darker imperative for social action 
in behalf of the well-being of the whole of society. It is 
the imperative of stark necessity. We have tried to make a 
safe and pleasant world by every other means except reli¬ 
giously impelled social action. We have tried all the forms 
of unrestricted competition and individual license on the 
scale of the small community, the state, the nation, the world 
order. We have tried limited philanthropy and partial jus¬ 
tice. But we have never tried such religious social action as 
equality of opportunity for all in matters of health, housing 
and education. If war, the final fruit of all injustices, sweeps 
us near enough oblivion, if fears lock our bodies and cripple 
our minds to the very threshold of insanity, perhaps our numb 
lips may acknowledge the elemental necessity for becoming 
our brother’s keeper. It is difficult to call this sort of forced 
consent “ religious.” But even the good man sometimes ac¬ 
knowledges expediency in ordering his ways, while the in¬ 
different man may have his first taste of generosity when, 
forced to part with a cloak to save his own skin, he discovers 
in the sacrifice a warmth of appreciation more comforting 
than his cloak. The church has utilized expediency before. 
So far as America is concerned, the church is not yet beaten 
to her knees in sufficient desperation to cry out in fear or 
humility or both, “ Let us try concern for our fellows before 
it is too late.” Force is easier, as yet; competition is easier; 
war is easier. Even for the individual who thinks himself 
religious they are easier. But the day may be near when the 
church will be overwhelmingly concerned with economic 
justice and interracial brotherhood for the conclusive reason 
that nothing less will be feasible if humanity is to endure. 

However, today it is not altogether the lack of an adequate 
imperative which keeps religious persons from participating 


8o 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ACTION 


more actively in social salvation. Probably today the ma¬ 
jority of religious men and women feel that they do have, in 
the abstract, sufficient imperative for righteousness in terms 
of social responsibility. They reason that if there is a God or 
if there are unfathomed spiritual resources in man or if life 
is to move smoothly and safely, then it would no doubt be a 
fine thing if we could have a little more social righteousness. 
Indeed, if they had a blueprint for social justice they would 
get up and go to work to give it verisimilitude in daily life. 
But they have no blueprint. They have only the ideals and 
the chaos of Christianity and democracy. No branch of the 
church, Protestant or Roman Catholic, seems able to fix spe¬ 
cific responsibility for social sin: which, for instance, is the 
greater sin against society, the rapid growth of horse-racing 
and betting in this country or the leaning toward war ? Or 
is the first only a sport gone astray and the second sometimes 
an honorable necessity? Do the two have any relation to 
each other ? Do they stem from a common root ? If so, what 
is the root ? And how does one man, or one church, begin 
to grub it out ? Only a mind highly sensitized to the forces 
which destroy or build up a personality can be sure of socio¬ 
economic cause and effect. Most of us, however eager and 
earnest, lack both training and insight. Moreover, we know 
that we lack these prerequisites and we feel intellectually 
embarrassed when we find ourselves swatting gnats and 
swallowing camels in the name of reform. We are ac¬ 
quainted with too many social actionists like the minister 
who cleaned out the slot machines while he played the stock 
market. If we tamper with the social order at all we want 
to feel that our reforms are basic. 

Our confusion is genuine and so is our humility. But 


MARGUERITTE HARMON BRO 


81 


nevertheless they are overrated as reasons for inaction. In 
every community there are abuses — sins — which enough 
people agree upon to make them a starting point for social 
housecleaning. However, when it comes to the first move, 
we are right back where the prophets were, facing the facts 
of unpopularity and ostracism — measuring individual se¬ 
curity and recognition against possible oblivion for the sake 
of filling a social need. Those who decide to go into action in 
behalf of the need are the religious people, whatever their 
sign or creed, whatever their mistakes. It is possible, of 
course, to be ignorantly religious or wisely religious and 
probably no man can be absolutely sure in which category he 
will eventually be card-filed. He can only be sure that an 
attempt to redeem a social wrong is his own guarantee of 
personal integrity. 

Obviously, the church’s becoming engaged in social action 
is quite a different matter from the religious individual’s 
dedicating his own life to social justice. For as soon as indi¬ 
viduals get together in a group and begin to act in the name 
of something — an organization, a principle or a leader — 
they tend to set up absolutes, offer rewards, inflict penalties, 
prescribe the minutiae of ways and means. They tend to 
proclaim their infallibility and to overlook their own mis¬ 
takes. However, these drawbacks of organized movements 
have never restrained men from joining political parties, 
community councils or yacht clubs. Why then should they 
deter the one organization whose only objective is the re¬ 
demption of humanity ? 

As a matter of common sense, like-minded individuals 
must get together in order to act effectively. They may get 
together as members of a church dedicated to a specific re- 


82 


RELIGION AND SOCIAL ACTION 


form. Or the church, through its sacraments and fellowship, 
may be the source of their inspiration to act under some other 
group-name, or no name at all. The religious imprint lies 
in the individual’s perceiving a human need and committing 
himself to its fulfillment. 

Or is social action “religious” because of the miracle 
which happens anew whenever one man becomes concerned 
for his brother ? The minister who cleaned up the slot ma¬ 
chines was a miracle of power in his not so small community. 
Not absolute or all-wise power, to be sure, when viewed 
against society’s total needs; but his mind, his hand, his might 
were magnified a thousandfold above his fellows. Through 
his fellows. Probably he himself will never revamp the eco¬ 
nomic order. Probably he will never see or understand all 
the social sins of his day. But he sees a long way beyond his 
neighbors and he is disciplined to hold his vision. 

That is where the prophets stood — ahead of the vanguard, 
building their convictions into the social structure of their 
time. Whether their vision came of God or of men, they 
moved ahead on their own two feet. They kept themselves 
fit to march by marching, fit to build by building. Their 
power was the immeasurable, contagious power of the re¬ 
ligious man gone into action in behalf of his vision. 

After all, there was a great deal of food in Galilee when the 
five thousand turned hungrily to Jesus. But he could bless 
only the loaves and fishes which were at hand — ready. This 
is the law, the law of life. Perhaps religious men have 
enough of proof and promise in this recurring miracle of 
human brotherhood that multiplies and transcends itself 
whenever one individual — even one — is ready to be used 
to answer the need he apprehends. 


VIII 


A FREE CHURCH BESIDE A FREE STATE 
IN A FREE SOCIETY 

CHARLES CLAYTON MORRISON 

f | "'HERE ARE four ways in which the church may be re- 
lated to the state. First, the church may be above the 
state. This is the theory held by the Roman Catholic Church. 
In its view, the church is itself a supernational state. Second, 
the church may be subordinate to the state. This is totali¬ 
tarianism, represented in fascist, nazist and (in so far as any 
church is allowed to exist) communist societies. Third, the 
church may be organically united with the state, two aspects 
of the national community. This is the theory of the estab¬ 
lished or state church. 

The fourth way in which church and state may be related 
is the American way. Here church and state exist side by 
side, but completely separate, in a free society. Separation 
of church and state also obtains in Canada and other free 
dominions of the British empire. This arrangement is pe¬ 
culiarly congenial to democracy. Indeed it is a natural and 
necessary expression of the democratic principle. 

The American Constitution does two fundamental things. 
It sets up a form of government, and it sets forth and guaran¬ 
tees a forum of freedom. The form of government is de¬ 
signed to embody the doctrine that all just powers of govern¬ 
ment are derived from the consent of the governed. This is 
83 


84 FREE CHURCH, FREE STATE, FREE SOCIETY 

political democracy. The Constitution as originally sub¬ 
mitted to the thirteen states rested upon the theory that the 
powers with which it clothed the government were granted 
to it by the people, and that only such powers could be exer¬ 
cised by the government as were specifically provided for in 
the text of the Constitution. 

To the fathers in the constitutional convention this seemed 
sufficient. But their document was no sooner released and 
submitted to the several states for ratification than it encoun¬ 
tered widespread dissatisfaction and apprehension among the 
people. This Constitution, they reflected, only provides a 
form of government. But government does not cover the 
whole field of democracy. The Constitution should defi¬ 
nitely provide that all powers not specifically granted to the 
government are reserved to the people. Not only so, but 
certain basic rights of free men and free society should be 
specified which the government may not invade. 

The Constitution was finally ratified with the general un¬ 
derstanding that amendments embodying a bill of rights 
would be submitted to the states by the first session of the 
Congress, which was done, and the amendments were rati¬ 
fied. The Bill of Rights consists of the first ten amendments 
to the Constitution. The tenth of these amendments abso¬ 
lutely restricts the government from exercising any powers 
which are not delegated to it by the Constitution. The other 
nine amendments specifically enumerate certain rights as 
inviolable and positively guaranteed. 

The most fundamental of these rights are listed in the first 
amendment. It forbids Congress to make any law respecting 
an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof, or abridging freedom of speech, or of the press, or of 


CHARLES CLAYTON MORRISON 


85 

the right of assembly, or of petition. I wish to direct atten¬ 
tion to the broad principle which embraces all these rights 
and liberties. If the original draft of the Constitution set up 
a form of government, it was the Bill of Rights which set 
forth the inviolable forum of freedom. The forum of free¬ 
dom is just as truly a part of the American system as is the 
form of government. Its area is wider than the area of gov¬ 
ernment. The democratic process operates in both. In the 
government it operates by the consent of the governed. In 
the forum of freedom it operates, without let or hindrance 
from the government, by the free exchange of opinions, ideas, 
ideals and cultural values in a manner that is intended to 
keep always open the possibility of reconciling differences by 
argument, persuasion and example. 

The fathers were determined that the new American state 
should not be a “ totalitarian ” state. True, they did not have 
that word, but they very clearly had that idea when they in¬ 
sisted upon a bill of rights. They were determined to keep 
the whole cultural domain outside the scope of government 
— the domain of belief, of conscience, of speech, of publica¬ 
tion, of scientific research, of assembly, of worship, together 
with the institutions which embodied these liberties. They 
drew a circle around the state, and proclaimed that the whole 
domain outside that circle was a realm of freedom — free 
action, free opinion, free inquiry, free discussion, free per¬ 
suasion, free decision. Religion and the church were specifi¬ 
cally envisaged as lying outside the state’s jurisdiction. This 
is religious liberty. 

What do we mean by the formula, “ separation of state and 
church ” ? Many persons pay tribute to the formula who do 
not stop to inquire what it means. Does it mean that the state 


86 FREE CHURCH, FREE STATE, FREE SOCIETY 

must be indifferent to religion, that it must not be responsive 
to the considerations which religion may bring to bear upon 
its policies, that church and state must exist in separate water¬ 
tight compartments and can have no contact with each other ? 
Does it mean that the church may not try to influence the 
state in the direction of just laws and their righteous adminis¬ 
tration, that the church may not criticize the state or its laws 
or their administration ? On the other side, does it mean that 
the state may not recognize the Deity, or open the sessions of 
its legislatures with prayer, or employ chaplains for its sol¬ 
diers and sailors, or otherwise confess the dependence of the 
state upon the guidance of divine providence? Surely we 
do not mean any of these things by the separation of church 
and state. Surely the makers of the Constitution did not so 
intend. 

Our confusion arises from the tendency to substitute other 
words for “ church ” or “ state.” We do not mean separation 
of religion and the state, nor separation of religion and poli¬ 
tics, nor yet separation of the church and politics. We mean 
separation of church and state — a concept quite different 
from any of those just mentioned. The church is the organ¬ 
ized institution of religion, just as the state is the organized 
institution of political life. It is these two institutions which 
must be kept separate, according to our Constitution and our 
American tradition. But it is a separation which still leaves 
room for moral and social responsiveness and interaction. 
In what respect, then, are these institutions to be kept sepa¬ 
rate ? The answer is that they are to be kept separate — com¬ 
pletely separate — in their official or institutional function¬ 
ing. There must be no entanglement of their respective 
processes by law or by the administration of law. 


CHARLES CLAYTON MORRISON 


87 

Separation of church and state means that the church shall 
not participate in the official processes of the state — for ex¬ 
ample, by having a representative of the church in any legis¬ 
lative, administrative or judicial department of the state; and 
that the state shall not participate in the official institutional 
processes of the church — for example, by prohibiting the 
free exercise of the church’s proper functions or by special 
recognition of one church or its representatives whereby that 
church is given a unique relation to the state. 

The Constitution does not merely forbid the establishment 
of religion, it forbids the making of any law respecting the 
establishment of religion — that is, pointing in the direction 
of such establishment, or carrying implications that might de¬ 
velop into such establishment. Any law, or any official act 
in the administration of the law, which tends toward the 
establishment of religion, or recognizes a particular religious 
organization as having a claim to a special relationship to the 
state, is a violation of the constitutional prohibition “ respect¬ 
ing the establishment of religion,” and therefore a violation 
of the constitutional guarantee of full religious liberty. It is 
obvious that if one church is given special privilege or recog¬ 
nition by the state, the religious liberty of all other churches 
is thereby prejudiced and curtailed. 

The American system is sometimes described by the for¬ 
mula, “ A free church in a free state.” But this is an inaccu¬ 
rate and dangerous formula. In the American system, the 
church is not “ in ” the state. So to conceive it is to go over 
bag and baggage to totalitarianism. In totalitarian countries 
the church is indeed in the state, for the state is the compre¬ 
hensive institutionalization of the whole social order. But 
the American state is not totalitarian. It is not coterminous 


88 FREE CHURCH, FREE STATE, FREE SOCIETY 

with the national community. It leaves broad areas of cul¬ 
tural and social life which it may not invade. Society keeps 
its own freedom and has granted only a specified domain or 
jurisdiction to the state. The true conception of the relation 
of church and state in America is that of a free church beside 
a free state in a free society. 

How has this principle fared in actual practice — this prin¬ 
ciple of a free church side by side with a free state in a free 
society ? By and large, it has fared well. It can be truly said 
that both church and state have, in the main, kept faith with 
the fathers. There are, however, certain points at which it is 
recognized that the principle is being violated or imperiled. 
Some of these violations, or near-violations, are less important 
than others; but none is unimportant if the principle of sepa¬ 
ration of church and state is compromised. We may mention 
them under four categories which call for study and vigi¬ 
lance. These are (i) taxation, (2) education, (3) diplomacy 
and (4) war. 

1. Under taxation, there is the major question of the ex¬ 
emption of church property from its share of the burden of 
supporting the state. The grant of exemption is not dis¬ 
criminatory — it applies to all churches. It thus cannot be 
argued that it impairs the freedom of one church in relation 
to other churches. But it may compromise the dignity of the 
church, and perhaps its freedom in relation to the state. So 
long as the state derives its revenue, or a portion of it, from 
the taxation of real property, the acceptance of this exemp¬ 
tion by the churches shifts to each citizen taxpayer the burden 
of making up the difference. He is thereby compelled to 
contribute to the support of the churches. 

Religion in a democracy rests upon the principle of volun- 


CHARLES CLAYTON MORRISON 


89 

tarism. Does not the principle of self-respect unite with the 
principle of voluntarism to demand that each church shall 
pay its own way? Additional considerations arise in the 
practical working of this exemption. Is it not subject to such 
serious abuse as to constitute a danger to public welfare — 
first, by stimulating an inordinate accumulation of property 
by some churches, thus giving them an unhealthy stake in the 
economic order, and second, by encouraging an inordinate 
and socially wasteful multiplicity of church organizations ? 

There has recently arisen the question of the positive taxa¬ 
tion of churches in connection with the new social security 
and pension legislation. Here the question is whether the 
churches should allow their ministers to be included in the 
government’s provisions. Is it compatible with the church’s 
freedom to allow itself to be taxed by the government for the 
benefit of its clergy and to accept on their behalf the support 
of the state? The alternative, of course, is for the church 
voluntarily to make a provision for its ministers at least equal 
to that which the government offers. This has already been 
done in the larger denominations by a denominational pen¬ 
sion system. In the case of their non-ordained employees, 
however, there is a difference of opinion. The question 
seems overnice to some, but to those who are sensitive to the 
principle of voluntarism in religion on the basis of the com¬ 
plete separation of church process from state process, the issue 
involved will not lack substance or importance. 

2. On the educational front, the temptation for an inter¬ 
locking of church and state arises because the function of 
education is exercised by both church and state. Public edu¬ 
cation, supported by taxation, is firmly established in the 
United States. But the forum of freedom is not invaded. 


9 o FREE CHURCH, FREE STATE, FREE SOCIETY 

Private schools under church or other auspices exist side by 
side with public schools. Parents are free to send their chil¬ 
dren to the private in preference to the public schools. These 
private or sectarian schools derive their support from those 
who patronize them and those who have a religious, an edu¬ 
cational, or even a commercial motive for maintaining them. 
Their fostering and operation are purely voluntary. 

The public school, on the other hand, is an expression of 
public policy, embodying the principle that democracy re¬ 
quires for its own protection and development an intelligent 
and educated citizenship. For this purpose all citizens are 
taxed. They are not taxed as beneficiaries of the educational 
system, nor is their tax graduated in proportion to the benefits 
received, nor canceled because their choice of private schools 
leaves the benefits of the public schools unappropriated. 
Public education is projected as a public benefit and derives 
its support without discrimination from the entire public. 
Private or sectarian education rests upon private or sectarian 
motivation, and its support must therefore be voluntary on 
the part of those who desire to maintain it. 

In the practical operation of this dual system of education, 
numerous issues arise. On the side of the public school, the 
outstanding problem is that concerned with the content of 
teaching, especially in matters relating to religion, morals and 
scientific doctrine. Another question concerns the indirect 
influence of the teaching personnel or the school manage¬ 
ment with respect to the favorable or unfavorable orientation 
of pupils toward specific religious organizations, toward the 
state itself and toward the social mores. 

On the side of the private or sectarian schools, the issues 
are chiefly those which arise from the attempt of such schools 


CHARLES CLAYTON MORRISON 


9 1 

to secure aid from the public treasury. The burden of volun¬ 
tary support is admittedly a heavy one, especially in the case 
of Catholic parochial schools. Departures have already been 
made in some states of the union from the principle of volun¬ 
tary responsibility. The most plausible first step in this en¬ 
croachment upon the public treasury is in the carrying of 
parochial pupils in busses provided by public funds for public 
school pupils. This step once taken, the next is to include the 
parochial schools in the free textbook system provided for the 
public schools. When these precedents are once established, 
little argument is left to withstand the demand that the 
public treasury also provide the salaries of parochial school 
teachers, or the upkeep of buildings. Eventually, the claim 
takes the form of an outright demand for an allocation of 
public school revenue to the sectarian school on the basis of 
relative school age population. 

At many other points in the educational process the state is 
tempted to obliterate the line between education as a public 
policy and education oriented toward particularistic ends. 
The examples cited are sufficient to make the distinction clear 
and to call for vigilance wherever the principle of separation 
of church and state is compromised or threatened. 

3. A clear instance of the violation of the separation of 
church and state has recently arisen in the field of diplo¬ 
macy. This was the appointment by President Roosevelt of 
an ambassador to the pope as head of the Roman Catholic 
Church. Quite aside from the fact that this appointment was 
made without the advice and consent of the Senate, it seems 
obvious that such diplomatic relations are contrary to the 
American Constitution. In an ambassadorship to the Vatican 
the diplomatic process of the state is interlocked with the 


92 FREE CHURCH, FREE STATE, FREE SOCIETY 

diplomatic process of the Roman Catholic Church. This 
constitutes an actual union of church and state — not, of 
course, a complete union of church and state, but an actual 
union of their respective diplomatic processes. In terms of 
the Constitution, the President’s action in appointing an am¬ 
bassador to the head of a church is, in fact, an action respect¬ 
ing the establishment of a particular religion. The Roman 
Catholic Church is thereby given a privileged position in 
relation to the state, an official access to the ear of the state, 
a power or influence over the state, which no other church 
enjoys. 

Not only so, but such a relationship to the state invests the 
Catholic Church with an unfair advantage in the forum of 
freedom. It enters the forum of freedom with a prestige 
which no other church enjoys, and thus exercises an influence 
over the cultural life of the nation which is not derived, as in 
the case of other churches, solely from its inherent character 
as a church, but from its special relation to the state. Obvi¬ 
ously, this is a curtailment of the full religious liberty of all 
other churches. Their religious liberty is curtailed because 
all other forms of religion are compelled to pursue their work 
in the shadow, and against the prejudice, created by the 
special privilege and the official prestige enjoyed by this par¬ 
ticular religious organization. 

Religious liberty means more than the individual’s right 
formally to worship God according to the dictates of his own 
conscience. Individual worship is only one aspect of religion, 
and freedom in its exercise is only one aspect of religious lib¬ 
erty. Freedom of individual worship is hardly forbidden 
even in those nations whose governments are most notorious 
for their denial of religious liberty. Religion by its very na- 


CHARLES CLAYTON MORRISON 


93 

ture embraces the whole cultural order as the scene of its 
functioning. Its ultimate aspiration is to create a social order 
in conformity with its faith. 

Religious liberty, therefore, includes the liberty of each re¬ 
ligious group or church to mold the social or cultural life of 
the national community — its education, its politics, its busi¬ 
ness, its morality, its family life, its relations with other na¬ 
tional communities — by its particular faith, and to do this 
unaided, but also unimpeded, by law or the administration of 
law. This social or cultural aspiration of religion finds ex¬ 
pression, in the American system, in the forum of freedom 
where the democratic process operates by argument, persua¬ 
sion and example. The American state has guaranteed this 
forum of freedom and each citizen is bound to protect it, not 
only for himself, but for his faith; and not for his faith only, 
but for all other faiths no matter how widely they differ from 
his own. 

To consent to a diplomatic relationship with the Roman 
Church is to consent to a principle whose development spells 
ultimately the predominance of Catholicism in American 
culture. By as much as the Catholic Church is given a special 
position in the processes of the government, other churches 
will find themselves in a subordinate and prejudiced position 
in American life. By as much as the Catholic Church is ac¬ 
corded a special access to the ear of the government, the access 
of other churches will be restricted and embarrassed. By as 
much as the Catholic Church uses its special position and its 
unique access to the ear of the government to achieve its own 
ends in American society, other churches will awake to find 
that their influence in American society is being undermined. 

The spirit of the forum of freedom is the spirit of tolerance. 


94 FREE CHURCH, FREE STATE, FREE SOCIETY 

And the spirit of tolerance depends upon the legal and official 
parity of the participants. When one church enters this 
forum clothed with the trappings of an official status, or with 
public money in its purse, tolerance flies out of the window. 

4. The question of the relation of church and state in war¬ 
time has arisen in America only within the present genera¬ 
tion. For the most part it has been traditionally taken for 
granted that the duty of the church was to lend its sanctions 
and practical support to the state in any war in which the 
state engaged. This duty is now being challenged. The 
challenge arises within the church itself. The issue has been 
obscured in American democracy by the misleading dictum, 
“ A free church in a free state.” In the American system, as 
we have said, the church is not in the state. If it were, it 
would not be a free church. Only as the church exists in a 
free society, side by side with a free state, can the church be 
free. Our democratic system leaves the church outside the 
jurisdiction of the state in that sphere of freedom which so¬ 
ciety reserves to itself. The church is as truly independent 
as is the state. It does not exist in the state, nor function in 
the state. It exists in and functions in the forum of freedom. 
In terms of democracy, the church is not here because the 
state allows it to be here, but because a free society allows it 
to be here. In terms of the church’s conception of its own 
inner genius, its independence derives from the fact that God 
put it here. To surrender this independence is to go over to 
totalitarianism. 

The church therefore, in American democracy, has not 
only the right but the duty to determine by its own principles 
its attitude toward state policies and undertakings. Its atti¬ 
tude toward war in general, and toward a particular war, 


CHARLES CLAYTON MORRISON 


95 


must be freely determined by the principles which the church 
embodies. If the principles for whose regnancy it stands — 
such as the brotherhood of all men under the universal father¬ 
hood of God — can be so interpreted as to allow it to sanc¬ 
tion and support the state in making war, it may do so. But 
if not, the church must claim its right and duty to oppose the 
state, or to criticize the course the state is taking, or to remain 
silent and uncooperative. In either case, the church, if it is a 
free church, must make its decision freely in the light of its 
own genius — and take the consequences. 

It is of the utmost importance that the church shall define 
for itself, first, the fact of its independence, second, the 
ground of its independence, and third, its determination to 
act in accordance with its independent character and status. 
The state itself should be left in no uncertainty as to the 
church’s conception of its own inner freedom and its liberty 
of action. 


IX 


CONSCIENCE AND POLITICS 

T. V. SMITH 

When two, or more men, know of one and the same fact, they are 
said to be Conscious of it one to another; which is as much as to know 
it together. And because such are fittest witnesses of the facts of one 
another, or of a third; it was, and ever will be reputed a very Evill act, 
for any man to speak against his Conscience; or to corrupt or force an¬ 
other so to do: Insomuch that the plea of Conscience has been alwayes 
hearkened unto very diligently in all times. Afterwards, men made 
use of the same word metaphorically, for the knowledge of their own 
secret facts, and secret thoughts; and therefore it is Rhetorically said, 
that the Conscience is a thousand witnesses. And last of all, men, 
vehemently in love with their own new opinions (though never so 
absurd), and obstinately bent to maintain them, gave those their opin¬ 
ions also that reverenced name of Conscience, as if they would have 
it seem unlawfull, to change or speak against them; and so pretend to 
know they are true, when they know at most, but that they think so. 

Thomas Hobbes 

/^AUR TEXT is from that curious masterpiece of Hobbes’s, 
the Leviathan . It constitutes one of the most pregnant 
comments upon conscience in the literature of morality. It is 
perhaps substantially true logically, whatever may be thought 
of it etymologically. The conclusion that Hobbes himself 
draws from the truth the text contains is, however, largely 
antithetical to the conclusion which we ourselves shall sug¬ 
gest. Hobbes concludes that conscience as private is morally 

96 


T. V. SMITH 


97 

pernicious as well as lexicographically anomalous. He pro¬ 
ceeds lengthily and ponderously, quoting Scripture all the 
while just like the devil, to argue that a “ Christian Common¬ 
wealth ” would be one in which the fanaticism that he asso¬ 
ciated with individual conscience has given way to the peace¬ 
able and orderly fruits of totalitarianism. The “ Kingdom 
of Darkness” he then proceeds to identify with the com¬ 
monwealth that historically has been called Christian, one 
in which private conscience is glorified. 

This almost complete transvaluation of values has of course 
its own natural history. Suffice it to say here that Hobbes had 
no little justification in the book of his times for this harsh 
judgment upon private conscience. If our assessment can be 
more generous, it is largely because we live in times them¬ 
selves more generous and orderly. Or do we ? The shadow 
of Leviathan is upon us and the stench of his refuse is brought 
by the winds of the world to our very nostrils. Every other 
pulsation throbs to new forebodings of his approach; but as 
yet we Americans live in a blessed oasis and we may celebrate 
that blessedness by talking still as though reason yet prevailed 
in the world. 

That conscience may be and usually is the source of fanati¬ 
cism is of course true. That fanaticism is bad for society is 
not to be gainsaid. But that conscience must lead to fanati¬ 
cism is hardly true. The risk of fanaticism we must indeed 
run in order to escape the private danger of sterile authori¬ 
tarianism. This danger can be lessened without the com¬ 
plete sacrifice of advantages associated with fanaticism. Poli¬ 
tics is but our general name for the technique through which 
happy accommodation is made between this risk and this 
danger. Let us now give orderly attention to these thoughts. 


9 8 


CONSCIENCE AND POLITICS 


I 

We shall hardly indulge in the ease of arguing that fanati¬ 
cism is dangerous and that conscience is its normal parent. 
Not while Hitler’s conscience continues to fulminate against 
the Jews. Not while Stalin’s conscience continues to threaten 
the whole of traditionally religious cultures with liquidation. 
To deny their convictions the name of conscience would be to 
convict ourselves of disingenuousness. What Plato in the 
Laws wrote large against the atheists and Calvin indited in 
blood against opposing sects, these modern connoisseurs of 
conscience do but bring up to date. 

The complexity of the problem resulting and the general 
way to thread the maze are both sufficiently suggested in Rus- 
kin’s sage advice: “ Obey thy conscience! But first be sure it 
is not the conscience of an ass.” This advice, like other ad¬ 
vice, unfortunately is most necessary where it is least likely 
to take effect. Human asses, of the high order of fanatics, 
take their consciences neat. When men become sophisticated 
enough to lay asininity aside, they sometimes become anemic 
enough to compromise their consciences in the pinches of 
social demands. Both aspects of Ruskin’s advice are sound, 
but they need to be taken together. So difficult is it to take 
them together, however, that Ruskin, like most litterateurs, 
solves our problem merely by restating it, the major problem 
of politics. How can an ass get an enlightened conscience ? 
And how can a man follow it (so variegated are its pointings) 
when he does achieve one ? 


T. V. SMITH 


99 


II 

There is for a fact no pain like the pain of a new idea, es¬ 
pecially if it be an ethical or a religious one. Almost by 
definition the good conscience already knows the right, and 
the clearer that knowledge is the more it shuts out everything 
else as wrong. To the conscience headed for fanaticism the 
matter is almost as simple as that. How to break that shell 
without crushing the kernel ? It is perhaps safe to say that 
the perseveration (it is a word from the lexicon of pathology) 
of moral ideas is such that the final cure must be homeo¬ 
pathic : it requires a fanatic to get a fanatic ready to be cured. 
If the two be let alone, however, the cure takes the form of a 
killing. Carl Sandburg particularizes it in his lines about 
the two men who “ shot it out over who owned one corner 
lot,” and now lie side by side in one grave as “ two accom¬ 
modating neighbors.” There is nothing, I mean to say, 
which the claims of the fanatical conscience may not cover 
— from a corner lot to the Trinity — and it smothers what¬ 
ever it embraces. So long as in our religious ambit conscience 
banned only dancing, it left a streak of social awkwardness 
in its wake but did perhaps no irreparable harm. Nor was it 
so bad when it banned only poker, or dime novels, or smok¬ 
ing. The catharsis of such “ vices ” usually produced virtues 
ambiguous enough to prevent too saccharine a splurge in 
saintliness. 

But those who perfect themselves in the pusillanimous will 
practice their will to perfection on things infinitely more im¬ 
portant as their power increases; for their “ knowledge,” like 
knowledge more nobly named, grows from more to more, 
and that always from the same thorny stalk. Raise a peasant 


100 


CONSCIENCE AND POLITICS 


to power, and revenge is just as sweet internationally as it was 
when he beat his faithful dog or murdered his devoted 
mother-in-law. Malevolence is quite as magic in its spread as 
is benevolence. Finally the conscience that drums innocent 
amusements from the lives of the young will protect the 
morals of the old by circumspection equally sinister. Beliefs 
about religion or economics will surely strike such a mind as 
proper material for its stewardship, all the more proper the 
less malleable it prove to be. 

The psychology of sincerity is a most interesting study. A 
week end, more or less, especially if spent in fasting and 
prayer, is enough to make sincere enough for bold action 
against others any belief that involves matters concretely im¬ 
portant for the believer. Personal prejudice, professional 
pride, financial possessions — these are all materials easily 
made sacrosanct by the law of progression inherent in the 
claims of conscience. The fanatical conscience secretes sin¬ 
cerity as the “ bilious liver ” secretes its bile. 

As I saw once upon a time the subtle processes whereby a 
beautiful “ nobody ” had become an important “ somebody ” 
through hobnobbing with the spirits, I could not really doubt 
the sincerity of Margery, the Boston medium. Nor have I 
ever been easily inclined to charge insincerity to any man’s 
account, not unless his stubborn sincerity balked my own 
sincerity ambitious to be about my ego’s business. 

It is indeed this latter line to which I have been slowly 
coming. Conscience meets its nemesis only in conscience. 
As long as a fanatic is allowed to have his way with only 
opposition enough to keep him in exercise, all seems (to him) 
well enough. Conscience is so far forth an instrument of 
order: he is converging the world around his own career-line 


T. V. SMITH 


IOI 


and a pattern is precipitated by his practice. No argument 
will be half as strong against as his continuous success will be 
for the rightness of his will. Such an attitude is not an 
achievement; it is the animal inheritance of each of us human 
end-products of evolution. We are all natural egoists in the 
sense that our own activity is taken for granted and from that 
vantage creates its own certification of integrity. The flag 
which each man flies upon the masthead of his own soul is 
this: “ Get out of my way, or fall in behind me! ” 

It is only when this natural egoism is questioned that it be¬ 
comes questionable . It cannot usually be questioned until it 
is stopped, and hardly anything can stop it which is less im¬ 
perious than itself. At any rate, whatever stops a claim of 
conscience save the claim of another conscience leaves con¬ 
science uncorrected, indeed leaves conscience untouched. 
We may be estopped by practical obstacles or even arrested by 
superior might; but a challenge of right is the only challenge 
recognized by conscience. Such a challenge is not itself 
enough to correct fanaticism. Indeed, nothing so infuriates 
conscience as to meet a conscience equally dogmatic. But if 
a killing does not take place from the meeting, an arrest does 
ensue. Delay can under the circumstances be made fruitful 
for the influence of impulses less imperious than those labeled 
conscientious. A sense of humor may come into play. Fa¬ 
tigue may dull the edge of determination. Effluences of 
beauty, as many will testify, may mitigate the despotism of 
the moral. “ Beauty,” says Plato’s Socrates, “ is certainly a 
soft, smooth, slippery thing, and therefore of a nature which 
easily slips in and permeates our souls.” 

It is not my purpose here to elucidate, but only to insinuate, 
such subsidiaries as might counteract the moral. Moral 


102 


CONSCIENCE AND POLITICS 


knowledge grows, as any knowledge grows, from a strange 
intermingling of motives. But moral knowledge does not 
automatically enlarge into generosity while it drives narrowly 
toward a predetermined goal. The dominant conscience gets 
arrested usually only by such narrowness and determination 
as match its own. There is always mutual desire to climax 
the arrest with a massacre. As Kipling delineates the process 
for the Neolithic Age: 

Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting dogs fed full, 

And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong; 

And I wiped my mouth and said, “ It is well that they are dead, 

For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong.” 

Fortunately for us, the Neolithic Age is over, for us in 
America at least. Through the long continued influences of 
humaner motives, we do not now normally give vent to the 
full fury of the conscience of an ass, or panther, or bear. Cer¬ 
tainly we have got beyond John Cotton in religion. But have 
we metamorphosed John Cotton into John L. Lewis or into 
William Green ? It is clear that in economics we run now 
nearer the brink than in religion; and we cannot but suspect 
that in the name of patriotism we may now and then look 
over the precipice. In an election year we will hear voices so 
sincerely strident as to cause a momentary wonder whether 
the will to win has not become more important than the will 
to play the game. 

Whatever be the outcome of such a historic moment, the 
important thing to see here is that the great American 
“ game ” is politics and that the “ will ” to play it is demo¬ 
cratic citizenship. Politics is, as we have said, the general 
name we have given to the processes of social accommodation 


T. V. SMITH 


103 

whereby the public drives of private conscience get publicly 
fulfilled in law, privately sublimated, or outright aborted. 
We speak, in this larger sense of the term, of the “ politics ” 
of churches, of schools, of lodges, etc. The truth is, of course, 
that democratic politics in the larger governmental sense is 
possible only in a type of society where continuous adjust¬ 
ment of the same sort goes on in voluntary groups both to 
relieve tensions at their sources and to train citizens in the 
abc’s of give-and-take. Governmental compromise at the 
level required by democracy and on the scale necessitated by 
crises is possible of acceptance only among a democratic 
people. While it is true (if I may echo Edward Scribner 
Ames’s characterization of religious values) that “ there is no 
political value which is not at the same time some other sort 
of value,” yet this neither authorizes a politician to spread the 
“ slime of politics ” over the activities of teachers, preachers, 
parents and other luminaries in our galaxies of prestige, nor 
permits him to escape responsibility for common human 
processes where they become, as they will in our division of 
labor, his very own. Let us, therefore, now turn to politics 
as such . 


hi 

If we were to present the realm of politics as completely di¬ 
vorced from this gentler social life in which it exists, we 
should have something like the state of nature which Hobbes 
envisaged, “ a war of all against all.” There are times, in¬ 
ternationally, when such seems to be the most accurate de¬ 
scription of the relationship obtaining; and there come times, 
nationally, when fear of a worse seems to be the prime mo¬ 
tive leading men to make the better of the bad. Hobbes is 


io 4 CONSCIENCE AND POLITICS 

valuable to us because he does peel the thing down to that 
very core of fear. At its worst, the conflicts of interest (as cov¬ 
ered by conscience) do become so bad that direct confronta¬ 
tion of those opposed only makes the conflict worse. Inter¬ 
mediaries are then required to operate between the sides with 
whatever code of honor has been born previously of the proc¬ 
ess of mediation. At its worst, politicians are these intermedi¬ 
aries preventing actual violence by spreading from one group 
to the other the fear of violence. Sinners against ideals they 
seem to be, but in a sick society they operate to prevent the 
saints from cutting each other s throats. All that, however, 
represents politics at its very worst, represents it where war is 
avoided only by the constant threat of war. 

Mostly in our society, of course, the political process oper¬ 
ates on hope rather than from fear. Then the intermediaries 
throw off their dark robes of spiritual blackmailers (threaten- 
ers of violence to estop violent men from outrage) and put 
on liveries of light. They become the professional promisers 
of things to men so well off that they can preoccupy them¬ 
selves with the hope of becoming still better off. Competi¬ 
tors in the business of pandering to conflicting cupidities — 
that might serve as another epithet to hurl at the professional 
practitioners of the art of democratic accommodation. But 
whatever we call our politicians, here they are — to come or 
go at the call of the electorate. 

While they stay, it is their professional business to compro¬ 
mise such conflicts of interest between competing groups as 
the groups cannot themselves settle directly. Since conflicts 
of any and all interests, however, involve adjusted feelings 
of conscientiousness, politics becomes the art whereby con¬ 
sciences in contradiction escape fanaticism. Politics is indeed 


T. V. SMITH 


105 

the final school to bring private consciences to the gracious 
test of public agreement, or as compensation, that failing, to 
sublimate the energy involved in impetuous feelings of up¬ 
rightness. I say “ final school ” because many consciences 
that can rise to generosity enough to accept agreements 
achieved in friendly groups will nevertheless balk at such 
crass proposals as the politicians have to resort to as between 
groups deeply inimical. Politics is therefore a sort of post¬ 
graduate medicine prescribed for moral education. It may 
be a bitter medicine, but it tests the patient’s will to get well, 
even if left slightly crippled. Always behind the politician’s 
worst prescription is the skull-and-bones of “Take it — or 
else! ” But attending his easier exercise are the peaceable 
fruits of justice to those who are exercised thereby. 

Face to face with inevitable conflicts of judgment as well 
as of interests, conscience reluctantly stretches itself upon 
the rack of growth, a rack intolerable if there were an alter¬ 
native other than killing somebody. There have been cases, 
however — let each reader reach back into himself for the 
pat illustration — in which men have done under such semi¬ 
duress what later they came to regard as among the better 
acts of their lives. It is safe to suggest that nearly every hard- 
fought law on matters of pressing moment involves some 
such accommodation, if we regard it from the time it is 
broached as a “ trial balloon ” by some leader until it is ac¬ 
cepted as one of the social advances of the period. 

To return to our text in Hobbes, what men “ know to¬ 
gether ” they know more securely than anything they know 
apart. “ Law,” as Hobbes had it, “ is the public conscience.” 
It is the maximum of what men know together. While law 
represents at any given time this maximum of what men 


CONSCIENCE AND POLITICS 


106 

can be got to agree to, the merely legal is subminimum at the 
same time to every private conscience. The process whereby 
this subminimum becomes more acceptable as public policy 
than the private maximum of ideality — that is the whole 
story whereby the consciences of asses leave off braying and 
mount to the dignity of human forbearance. 

But the story seems to fall into two parts: the outer part, 
to which I have been referring as politics, and the inner part, 
whereby conscience bends its neck without breaking its heart. 
Dismissing the external alternative of violence if one does not 
come to terms, let us concentrate for a moment upon the ter¬ 
rain of the more fully inner. Whatever faiths men live by 
are worth fighting for, and even dying for. Let us agree to 
that, if these faiths be attacked. But are they worth attack¬ 
ing? They are, you see, generally attacked in the name of 
conscience as well as defended in the same name. But if not 
attacked, they need not be defended. It is the dynamic con¬ 
science that makes necessary the defense, because it is such 
a conscience which engineers the attack. 

Now what is worth attacking ? Surely nothing that is en¬ 
tirely private. Well, things genuinely important publicly get 
publicly agreed upon. It is safe to say that, in every culture, 
the most important actual duties are publicly recognized by 
law and all that consciences can agree upon as downright 
bad are forbidden by law or custom. What, then, is the utility 
of the private conscience? Its public utility is that only 
through its pressures does law grow from more to more. 
Through it the process of agreement is extended, and law 
moves on ahead. But this mobility is not the function of any 
given private conscience. Orderly change implies agreement 
by the majority, if not to do then at least to accept; and prog- 


T. V. SMITH 


107 

ress is tested by whether there is general approval in calm 
retrospect. If enough want change, they can get anything 
done or undone. They can and will make their wants the 
law of the land, or, in matters less pretentious, the custom of 
the community. What cannot be so made may be of the last 
moment to the private individual, but not of the first impor¬ 
tance to any community. What is publicly important, and it 
only, gets publicly recognized. It is not publicly important 
that gentlemen prefer blondes, though it may be of great 
private importance. Only when it is made publicly impor¬ 
tant by fanatical decree does it prove incompatible with my 
own deep preference for the brunette. It is not publicly im¬ 
portant what a man privately believes about economics. 
What men privately believe about religion is of little or no 
public importance until private men make it so by trying to 
extend their private beliefs beyond their own privacy. What 
remains private is of only private importance; and the mo¬ 
ment it becomes publicly important, it is on its way to becom¬ 
ing a law. This as a matter of social fact. 

As a matter of right, I hazard the observation that that so¬ 
ciety is best which keeps publicly important things to the 
minimum and keeps at the maximum the number of things 
which are privately important alone. This is the sort of 
philosophy which is implicit in our Bill of Rights — as thor¬ 
oughgoing divorce as possible between private fact and pub¬ 
lic responsibility. Whoever bids in the name of conscience to 
make publicly important what could yet be restricted to pri¬ 
vate importance, is inviting politicians to take custody of his 
conscience by thrusting his conscience into the preserves of 
the politicians. 

It is amazing how many beliefs make really no public dif- 


io8 


CONSCIENCE AND POLITICS 


ference so long as they do not claim the right to dominate 
the field. With that claim anything and everything becomes 
publicly important. So long as tolerance abounds, variety 
can proliferate; and variety is after all the spice of life. This 
thought lays upon conscience one inviolable injunction: con¬ 
science must so prize what it does prize as to be willing to 
suffer in itself alone most action indicated by moral belief. 
It is not a test of the depth of a man’s convictions that he is 
willing to make converts to them. Quite the opposite: it is 
the test of the inner fiber of a man’s beliefs that he still hangs 
on to them though the whole world pass him by. It is the 
animal in us which says otherwise, not the human spirit. A 
man who is willing to fight and die to promulgate his way 
of life may, for aught that double fact declares, be fighting 
and dying to inflict his might rather than to enjoy his right. 
The lives of conquerors do make it seem plausibly so. The 
real test, then, of how precious a thing is to a man, right 
down on the inside, is whether he is willing to keep it to him¬ 
self and enjoy it rather than to inflict it. When tested thus, 
all too many of the gestures of conscience become a bid for 
power through claims of rightness rather than a reverent ap¬ 
preciation of ideals in their own right and for their own sake. 

It is in this understanding that we may affirm with George 
Santayana that the “ spiritual life ” consists in complete “ dis¬ 
intoxication ” from the worship of values. It is the willing¬ 
ness and the capacity to suffer one’s own private preferences, 
rather than the will to impose them, which renders men spir¬ 
itual. The disciple of conscience may, as Santayana further 
suggests, “ speak for others with authority when he knows 
them better than they know themselves, but not otherwise.” 
And we must add, for a democratic society, “ when others 


T. V. SMITH 


109 

admit that he knows them better than they know them¬ 
selves ” — which is seldom or never. It is in this mood that 
we may, in all earnestness, ask with Santayana: “ Is not 
morality a worse enemy of spirit than immorality ? Is it not 
more hopelessly deceptive and entangling ? Those romantic 
poets, for instance, whose lives were often so irregular — were 
they not evidently far more spiritual than the good people 
whom they shocked ? ” 

Politics — which is the mediation of private consciences 
in conflict by those who accept majority agreement as the 
only path to public right — politics is the schoolmaster who 
provokes moral growth by confronting private conscience 
with this alternative: Stay strongly within and enjoy yourself 
or come outside and weaken yourself with the will of the 
majority . 


X 


RELIGIOUS FICTION 

VAN METER AMES 

TV /TY FATHER accepts the philosophical position that 
value arises from interest or need, and that degrees of 
value depend not merely upon desire but upon a critical sur¬ 
vey of conditions and consequences. He agrees that impul¬ 
sive blind liking (or disliking) must be supplemented by 
reflection on what is fundamentally and broadly good for us 
and for society before we can establish anything like a scale 
of importance in our valuations. And he regards scientific 
method as the best procedure for establishing ends as well as 
means of conduct. Thus science merges with his religion, 
which is simply devotion to the highest values — the effort 
to discover most clearly what they are, to secure them most 
firmly and to share them most fully. I think he agrees that 
art is insight and technique by which value is focused for 
contemplation; and that, since art may or may not select 
highly important values, it may or may not be religious. 

The relation between the art of literature and religion in 
this sense cannot be settled by distinguishing writing on tra¬ 
ditionally religious topics such as God, immortality, the life 
of Jesus, from writing on supposedly non-religious themes 
such as farming, seafaring, vanity in high society, degrada¬ 
tion in the slums, the anxiety, delight or disillusionment of 
love, the coils of introspection. Ostensibly religious litera- 


IIO 


VAN METER AMES 


hi 


ture may not be religious for my father, as when Papini told 
the story of Christ in a hysterical fashion that obscured the 
realities and distorted the ideals of life. Goody-goody stories 
in old Sunday school papers failed through similar obscurity 
and distortion. In both cases the failure was in respect to art 
as well as to religion. But writing which succeeds in being 
religious must also be artistic; for if the highest values are 
effectively presented for imagination, some values are so pre¬ 
sented. 

The art of fiction facilitates the awareness of value through 
words. These are amphibious things. They have a sensuous 
and a significant aspect. Words can be heard and they can 
be understood. They are bits of sound and arrows of indi¬ 
cation. This duality is overcome in so far as the import of 
a word is felt in its impact; yet the aesthetic effect of litera¬ 
ture depends largely upon maintenance of its bipolarity. 
Any work of art needs two feet to stand on, or two wings to 
fly with, because it derives balance and propulsion from two 
sides. Art must focus attention on values by bringing them 
steadily within the myopia of interest, while holding them 
off enough to keep them in the far-sighted focus of contem¬ 
plation. Value can be contemplated only when fixed within 
the range of interest, yet inaccessible to the sort of practical 
response which would make it disappear from attention. 
Contemplation is insured when value is indicated by signs, 
because then value is reached by continuous heed to the signs 
of it, while they keep leading to value without bringing it 
close enough to dispense with the mediation of the sign proc¬ 
ess. Nearness is managed by the sensuous appeal of the me¬ 
dium; distance is maintained by using the material stuff as 
a basis for signs. Thus part of the experience of art is im- 


112 


RELIGIOUS FICTION 


mediate, and part is mediated. What can be sensed directly 
stands for something to be reached indirectly. 

A story is composed of words. Whatever these are for 
sense, they are also elements in a scheme for mind. And in 
literature it is easier than in other arts to keep the surface 
inviolate for contemplation, because it is too thin to invite 
more than a delicate approach of sense. What there is to 
hear is so limited, what there is to see is so little, that the 
physical medium of fiction is negligible compared to the 
volume of what is signified. 

Words may refer to things utterly unlike themselves, thanks 
to usage. The English words for light and air stand for them 
by agreement, not by resemblance. Onomatopoetic words 
imitate their objects, as in the tintinnabulation of the bells. 
Countless combinations of words echo or image forth what 
they refer to, though taken separately their reference would 
be purely conventional, as in descriptions of the sea. 
Rhythms and sounds of words may catch those of nature; 
natural qualities may be surprisingly reproduced in language, 
but seldom to such a degree that a conventional reference 
becomes superfluous. When we know what words are say¬ 
ing we often feel that, taken together, they have some prop¬ 
erties of the things they represent — enough to make the 
choice seem especially appropriate. But when we turn from 
literary treatment of inhuman things to verbal rendering of 
human experience, fluctuating from the inner forum to the 
outer spaces, then we see how far words can go toward iden¬ 
tity with what they stand for. The charm of writing lies in 
its being and not being what it seems; and it is never what it 
seems in so far as it seems at all. Words are pervious and self- 
transcending. In themselves they are empty, intangible. 


VAN METER AMES 


1 13 

Not they but their tracks are visible. Not they but their 
wings are audible. But as words conjure up the absent they 
pull together a verbal pattern that is there. Thus the actual 
substantiates the imaginary while being etherealized by it. 
The paradox of literature is that what is physically present 
is a paper-thin matrix of signs less palpable than paper; while 
what they represent may be the whole of human experience, 
and the more than human universe as far as man can con¬ 
ceive it. 

Writing which succeeds in being artistic, in focusing val¬ 
ues through words, may fall short of being religious if the 
values it presents do not answer to deep or comprehensive 
desires, and so are not commensurate with the position and 
vision of man. One cannot deny the artistry of D’Annunzio, 
but his absorption in lust, luxury, violence and death amounts 
to irreligion. The same is true of the Arabian Nights. Writ¬ 
ing, to be religious, must present values in a way that aids 
living, by making life seem worth living. Denial or glossing 
over of the truth, in so far as it is ascertainable, is not indicated. 
But the religious attitude, being one of affirmation rather than 
of analysis or doubt, seizes upon every source of encourage¬ 
ment that is available to natural experience and scientific 
method. 

My father is willing to do without supernatural salvation 
because he does not recognize metaphysical evil as that from 
which we need to be saved. For him such terms belong to 
an artificial view, a pre-scientific tradition he repudiates. He 
rejects Calvinism because instead of fitting man to face his 
real difficulties it discourages him with the fear of a hidden 
order he cannot understand or cope with. Thus for him the 
fiction of Franz Kafka would not be religious, though it is 


RELIGIOUS FICTION 


114 

very much so in the Calvinistic sense of depicting the futile 
struggle of a finite creature to approach the infinite authority 
which alone might afford solution for the awful enigma of 
existence. To one holding that life is good here and now 
and can be made ever better, Kafka is irreligious, because he 
is defeatist, disbelieving in the possibility of right action. The 
hero of The Trial and The Castle finds life a nightmare. 
His night is blacker than that of Louis-Ferdinand Celine’s 
narrator in Voyage au bout de la nuit, because the devalua¬ 
tion of all values here is caused by the horror of war, whereas 
it is theology that haunts Kafka’s hero. No doubt Kafka’s 
conception of the human lot was shadowed by Europe’s anxi¬ 
ety between two wars, but it was overshadowed by a religion 
which kept him from being religious as my father under¬ 
stands being religious — kept Kafka from hope and love and 
joy, because it kept him from accepting life in terms of its 
own natural values. 

If a self-enclosed pattern of self-transcendent signs makes 
writing artistic, a heartening interpretation of life makes 
writing religious when it studies the conditions of our being 
to build on them a solid edifice of ideals. Since it is by means 
of scientific method that our most reliable knowledge is had, 
there is no conflict between science and religion. Devotion 
to the good and faith in the possibility of attaining it ever 
more abundantly is religion. Study of the conditions and 
consequences of behavior as the basis and justification of such 
religious faith constitutes science. The link between science 
and religion is art, wherein the means and ends of life are 
fused for contemplation. Art renders accessible values more 
available for appreciation, and brings those which are yet 
unachieved within the reach of imagination, thereby provid- 


VAN METER AMES 


IJ 5 

ing refreshment from past effort and stimulation for future 
endeavor. The role of art, as thus understood, is especially 
evident in the art of fiction. As our circumstances and pos¬ 
sibilities are altered by science, fiction reveals the correlative 
new opportunities and pitfalls — in so far as fiction rises to 
the level of a responsibility and prophecy that can be called 
religious. A rude religion may be possible without much art, 
as a bare science may be. But that either science or religion 
could develop without the service of some art, or without 
flowering to some extent into art, seems improbable. The 
existence of science and religion presupposes and predisposes 
an awareness of means and ends which is naturally expressed 
in art, as well as fostered by art. And in our time it is through 
the art of literature, chiefly in the novel, that the grasp of 
immediate situations in the light of a larger setting, and the 
suffusion of remote considerations with immediacy, is most 
generally and effectively felt. 

Stories in the Old Testament are religious, not because they 
happen to be included in the Bible, but in the degree that they 
illuminate human life, indicating attitudes and action to be 
selected and cultivated. In the same way contemporary fic¬ 
tion is religious in helping us to know, with some inspiration, 
what we are and what we ought to do. Conrad’s work has 
a sailor’s respect for the water and wind that encircle, love 
for the vessels that enable us to make highways of oceans, 
and emphasis on the sense of duty and loyalty underlying 
the achievement and dignity of man. Knut Hamsun, in 
The Growth of the Soil, shows how humanity has been 
rooted to the earth, and how meeting the problems of clear¬ 
ing and developing a piece of ground grows character. How 
decent and kind, as well as resourceful and courageous, such 


ii 6 


RELIGIOUS FICTION 


farm-grown character can be is manifest in The Grapes of 
Wrath . There John Steinbeck reveals the capacity of man 
almost to hold his own in a losing struggle with nature and 
to incorporate the values of the good life, with the meanest 
of equipment. The moral would be plain, even if not under¬ 
lined by the author, that, at least in our country, the adversity 
which overwhelms the Joads and their like might be over¬ 
come by an infinitesimal increment of social responsibility 
on the part of the people as a whole. Readers who are 
shocked by the language of the Joads and not by their plight, 
with the implicit indictment, must have shock absorbers in 
the wrong place. 

The same may be said of James T. Farrell’s work. Though 
his city dwellers, presented in unvarnished vulgarity, are less 
appealing, one is moved to sympathy by the realization that 
the harshness of civilization is more blighting to the human 
spirit than the indifference of nature. The implication is 
that an aroused social conscience could make life worthy of 
man even in the city. Andre Malraux, in Mans Fate and 
other novels, upholds the idea that human dignity is some¬ 
thing to fight and die for. Believing that social conditions 
need to be changed, and can be, by concerted effort, he adopts 
a revolutionary attitude which might not seem religious to 
people who expect religion to justify the established order 
or to promise remote compensation for injustice now. But 
one must feel otherwise who identifies religion with martyrs 
and crusaders, with a love of humanity that does not count 
the cost of the ideal. And it is religion, and its churches with 
all their faults, that are the chief support, not only of the 
good there is in the midst of present evil, but of the Pro¬ 
methean spirit of reform. 


VAN METER AMES 


117 

Love, fundamental to religion, is basic in most fiction. 
While it is conventional to separate sacred and profane love, 
it is also customary to feel something divine in any experi¬ 
ence worthy of the name of love; even to feel that divine 
love must be more or less human. In a novel like Anna 
Karenina it seems natural and right that the enjoyment of 
normal domestic bliss should be suffused with thought of 
God. Perhaps the Freudian obsession with sex in the work 
of D. H. Lawrence seems less properly associated with ideas 
of God and salvation, though in his mind the connection 
is deep. But Lawrence’s very preoccupation with sex is evi¬ 
dence that human love is not reducible to biology. That 
when love is brought down to its lowest terms in the effort 
to avoid a sentimental romanticism, it yet rises to something 
ideal or palls, is a fact affirmed by fiction deserving adult 
readers. The incongruity between the physiological basis 
and the idealism indissoluble from the emotion has unending 
interest. Conflict is the source of emotion and of our prob¬ 
lem-solving intelligence, and it is out of problems that values 
are thrown into relief. So the tension between the egoism 
and the altruism of love is a theme of serious fiction. In 
Mans Fate the finest affection between individuals rivals the 
love of humanity at the same time that the intense narrower 
love tends to overflow into the larger. Thomas Mann holds, 
in one of his essays, and illustrates in his Joseph story, that 
self-love, if deep enough, will develop into concern for gen¬ 
eral welfare. And out of the introspective egoistic passion 
of D. H. Lawrence was growing a missionary zeal, however 
neurotic, to lead all men to a wholesome sun-filled life. 

The fiction of Thomas Mann has been preoccupied with 
the religious urge to appreciate the real, as represented by 


n8 


RELIGIOUS FICTION 


normal persons, without neglecting the equally religious im¬ 
pulse to dream and shape a world more congenial to imagi¬ 
nation. Like himself his heroes are torn between these two 
tendencies. Immersion in life and escape from life lead 
him to the conception of the human being as loyal to nature, 
yet bent on pushing beyond the given limitations of experi¬ 
ence to further fulfillment. The religious quality of Thomas 
Mann’s outlook has fitted him to rewrite the story of Joseph, 
in a way to bring out explicitly what was implied in the fa¬ 
miliar incidents, with the help of modern archaeology, psy¬ 
chology and biblical scholarship, but especially with imagi¬ 
native insight into the meaning of the covenant between 
Abraham and God. My father likes to point out how the 
idea of God is refined according to the development of the 
people in the image of whose life he is conceived to be 
the underlying reality and overarching ideal. So, in Thomas 
Mann’s novel, God is both the power of nature out of which 
man arose, and the sense of perfection emerging in man’s 
experience; created by him to some extent, but also creat¬ 
ing and re-creating man through increasing recognition of 
possibilities that kindle his aspiration, as he slowly breaks 
from the inertia of tradition to elevate both himself and his 
idea of God. Like his mother before him, Joseph wavers 
between the ever more spiritual religion of Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob and a primitive nature cult most hypnotic in the 
Egyptian worship of the dead. Thomas Mann’s novel sug¬ 
gests that not only the children of Israel, but all who hope 
for a future of humane living, must escape from Pharaoh. 
This religious-minded writer feels that excesses of national¬ 
ism today constitute a reactionary attachment to nature; that 
is, to the matrix we should be outgrowing toward a world 


VAN METER AMES 


119 

community which, since it lies ahead, appealing to our ideal¬ 
ism, he identifies with spirit. He does not wish repudiation 
of one’s own people, but believes that loyalty to the best in 
anyone’s heritage is compatible with yearning for an order 
based on common humanity. Thomas Mann, more than 
Malraux, values the past attainment of the race, especially 
the humanism of Western civilization, but feels that the good 
things of this tradition can be preserved only through recon¬ 
structive social thought and effort. 

Marcel Proust is often considered the epitome of European 
decadence in his morbid introspection alternating with ex¬ 
aggerated interest in the etiquette of lingering aristocracy. 
But, however snobbish he may have been at the outset, his 
disillusionment with the life about him led him to expose the 
vanity of it with the wrath of a prophet whose denunciation 
is a “ thus saith ” of the conviction that there is or ought to 
be a better way of life. 

The tendency of the best in recent fiction to have social sig¬ 
nificance does not mean that the world-saving aspect of re¬ 
ligion is all that concerns writers today. Despite the influ¬ 
ence of Jules Romains and John Dos Passos in looking over 
any one man’s head to the crowd, the importance of the in¬ 
dividual, not only as the focal point of society but as the locus 
of indefeasible value in himself, is recognized by many au¬ 
thors, including those already mentioned. Among literary 
folk the continuing and growing admiration of Henry James 
is to the point. How can he, expatriate, chronicler of idle 
lives, be taken seriously in a world of social crisis ? Escape 
is too easy an answer. Horror at what is happening in pub¬ 
lic is not the only reason for absorption in what is private. 
The explanation is that his concern with the individual, the 


120 


RELIGIOUS FICTION 


person, the self, the soul as it has been called in religion, is 
not obsolete or peculiar, but is shared by everyone who is at 
all self-conscious. If, as Whitehead says, religion is what we 
do with our solitariness, then even the subjectivity of James, 
Proust, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and even of Dorothy Richard¬ 
son, has a religious quality. The self is social. It comes from 
company and returns to it. Yet, as George H. Mead has re¬ 
marked, it is not at home in the universe the way the physical 
organism is, or a machine. 

The habitat of the self is society, which is located in a set¬ 
ting of non-human phenomena. How society arose there 
and what its relation is to the larger environment, we can¬ 
not see clearly. We must represent the vast impersonal and 
inanimate realms in such symbols as we can. In mystical 
vein we may even feel akin to whatever the surrounding 
reality is. But only in speaking of other people can we have 
a strong sense of knowing what we are talking about; only 
in addressing them can we feel that we are not wasting our 
breath. That is why religion, to save us from isolation, posits 
ideal persons to commune with, and interprets them as cen¬ 
tral in the apparently alien universe, so as to raise its moral 
temperature to a degree we can bear. But ideal persons 
would be small comfort to us if they were inhuman, if they 
did not extend and strengthen the redeeming aspects of per¬ 
sonal relationships in everyday life. These at their best are 
the best of life. They constitute life as we love it. And in 
the religion of my father, life as we love it is God. 

Characters in the fiction of Henry James are not ideal be¬ 
ings, and their relations are strained. He is not a prophet, 
a philosopher, or even a psychologist. He has no remarkable 
ideas. But he feels acutely the attraction and repulsion of 


VAN METER AMES 


121 


personalities. Following social interplay through an observ¬ 
ing self, he shows the observations of this central self to be 
the main drama. People talk and act, they notice the back¬ 
ground of city or natural scenery, but the hub of interest is 
in the self whose awareness envelops other persons and draws 
them to a private room where the action is reflection. This 
inner process is itself social, being peopled always with a 
dramatis personae, yet solitary in having absorbed others into 
itself. 

Does consciousness exist? William James asked. And as 
fast as we can state its content objectively, we do so. In 
some ways it is helpful to think of consciousness as a func¬ 
tion, a mode of behavior, rather than as an entity or sub¬ 
stance. But however it is to be described or accounted for, 
it is this strangely reflexive activity, constituting the essence 
of what it means to be a person, which interests Henry 
James. He wrote fiction filled with the truth that human life 
is a mystery focused in consciousness. The organism which 
becomes conscious is lodged in nature. But all the paths and 
milky ways of nature are lanes in the experience of a self 
which entertains not only the not-self but itself. Being aware, 
and awake to what is involved in being aware, feeling the 
personal, interpersonal and superpersonal quality of such 
more than physical sensitiveness, makes Henry James a very 
religious writer, in the respect in which perhaps my father 
also is most religious. It is this quality in the work of Henry 
James which justifies his conviction of the high seriousness 
of the novel as a form of art; for art is the means of making 
values vivid to imagination. 

Values are the goals of need and desire. Religion is de¬ 
votion to the most important of these. None is deeper than 


122 


RELIGIOUS FICTION 


the need to appreciate the essence of ourselves and of our re¬ 
lation to other selves. None is higher than the desire to 
transcend the animal organism with its physical environ¬ 
ment, to live in a society of sympathy and understanding. 
Fiction based upon this appreciation, and contributing to this 
transcendence, is religious. 


XI 


ART AND RELIGION 

B. FRED WISE 

"DELIGION and art are slippery words, and difficult of 
understanding because they represent such complex 
sets of ideas and practices. To some religion may mean 
the church and its organizations, or it may mean a practice 
that is individualistic or, on the contrary, some practice en¬ 
tirely social. Ethics, morality, philosophy, practices, activity, 
contemplation are all involved in the word religion. 

So it behooves one to define the terms. For the purpose 
of this paper, religion is an activity of life that seeks to bring 
a certain quality to the world of men and affairs. This 
quality is recognizable and describable. When we say that 
a man is religious we mean that he uses, practically and 
with intention, the general principles of both intelligence and 
love as he adjusts himself to his fellows and to the cosmos, 
and that he uses them constantly and consistently. 

We know men who are successful in making money be¬ 
cause they have been ruthless; business and labor organiza¬ 
tions have won values which they deemed necessary by using 
force; nations war with each other, killing and destroying. 
None of these activities brings a quality to life that could 
by any stretch of the imagination be called religious. But 

123 


124 


ART AND RELIGION 


schools, churches, settlements, hospitals, railroads, science, 
industry, all may bring a quality to life that is religious be¬ 
cause in their evolution they may apply a technique of love 
and intelligence. 

Art is that activity in man’s life that seeks to bring a quality 
of beauty and loveliness to the world. To some this statement 
may seem to restrict unduly the meaning of art. Some feel 
that art is expression, and so it is, but art defined as expres¬ 
sion will include much that is ugly. Such a definition also 
excludes nature, and nature is lovely. She is the first teacher 
of loveliness. But nature is not an expression of art because 
art is a man-made invention. 

Religion and art are then, by definition, two man-made 
activities, one seeking to qualify the associated life of man 
with love and intelligence, the other seeking to organize a 
complex body of sense impressions, techniques and natural 
phenomena into something lovely and beautiful. 

The sincere devotees of art and religion have sought to ex¬ 
tend these values to all men. This fact involves an under¬ 
standing of the techniques of both their practice and their 
extension, and thus technique becomes very important. 

The importance of technique among artists is an old story. 
Conscious technique among religionists is new. Technique 
in art is the method by which an artist obtains his results. 
If we could be realistic, the same observation would hold 
for religion. The technique of religion could be developed 
and passed on in the same manner as that of the arts has 
been. Religious education has tried to do this but because 
of tradition and lack of vision it has accomplished little in 
this direction. However, the religious educator will show 
the way as he continues to study human nature as it operates 


B. FRED WISE 


125 


and as he studies the technique for realizing the ends of re¬ 
ligion. 

The intelligent aspect of religion with respect to tech¬ 
nique consists of both the ends and the means. These tech¬ 
niques lie in the realm of ideas which, when emerging into 
action, are motivated by love. This means first, of course, 
that ideas are functional, active, in flux, and not static. It 
means that ideas must be shared and not held in some kind 
of objective suspension. Ideas from this point of view must 
be operative in life among and between men and groups. 

What are these ideas that are usable as religious techniques 
and instruments? In the Christian religion they are, from 
this point of view, such as are found in the Golden Rule, the 
thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, the Sermon on the 
Mount. These are great words. If they remain in a book 
or suspended in our minds, they are not functional. If used 
as techniques and instruments and applied by men and 
women and larger social groups, they would change the 
face of our civilization from a society dominated by compe¬ 
tition to one of creative peace. These ideas must be handed 
down from generation to generation and tested by each in¬ 
dividual. The religious genius will find them easy to op¬ 
erate while others will find them difficult. 

Now similarly with art. Art has had a slow growth, as 
has religion. Techniques have arisen and canons or ideals 
have been established. In art as in religion it has been the 
genius who has pushed forward the frontiers. It was a 
genius who scratched in simple line, and possibly in some 
color, the animals on the walls of caves in Spain and Pro¬ 
vence. He had had an impression and recorded it with the 
simple tools at hand. His work set a standard and developed 


126 


ART AND RELIGION 


an idea. Others followed and slowly an art developed to 
bring loveliness and beauty to the world. A man had really 
seen with his eyes, and a purely sense impression had been 
placed on a flat surface by the organization of simple lines, 
culminating in a structure and a form. The basis of all art 
is similar. There is a sense impression of hearing, of seeing, 
of feeling, and this impression is recorded by the artist work¬ 
ing in the medium of his choice. For example, a painter by 
observation has built up for himself his ideas of line, of color, 
of value, of form, of structure. These ideas used in some kind 
of organization will constitute a further idea of the whole 
impression which he is reproducing. The musician with his 
ideas of rhythm, melody and harmony will throw these lesser 
ideas into a composition which is a more complete idea of 
the impression he wishes to reproduce. So the artist is one 
who brings these organized sense impressions into being, 
as the religious man is one who brings love and intelligence 
into practice. 

The dissimilarities of art and religion are in terms of the 
mediums in which they work. Religion works with, in and 
through people. Its object is always the person, real or ideal¬ 
ized. The artist, however, works with a different medium. 
Art comes through a person working with sound, stone, 
paint, wood or bronze. The artist works on these inanimate 
things and by organization brings something into being that 
is beautiful and thereby adds a quality to our total life. An 
architect organizes stone, wood and steel into a building. 
Consequently, where inchoate space was, now organized 
space obtains. The composer-musician by the use of scales, 
harmonies, rhythm, organizes his tonal ideas into a structure 
and gives it written form. The violinist, organist or singer 


B. FRED WISE 


127 

adds his violin, organ or voice and all the techniques in¬ 
volved to make the music live, creating and adding a quality 
of loveliness to the world. 

Religion also differs from art in that it must be social. 
Religion is actuated in its inception by individuals, but its 
practices must work out in society. It is the genius of re¬ 
ligion to be evangelistic and all-inclusive. Most art also 
is social and it is important from the functional point of 
view that it be so, but it is not necessarily so. Art can be 
practiced in solitude. A man may work at his painting in 
the quiet of his studio; he may sing his songs on the moun- 
taintop; he may build his house on an island in the Pacific, 
taking no cognizance of his fellows in his activity. There 
could be art with one person in the world but there could 
be no real religion under such circumstances. 

What are the similarities between art and religion ? There 
are many. No doubt the multiplicity of similarities accounts 
for the close association between art and religion as actually 
worked out in man’s associated life. First, both activities 
work in the realm of ideas that in their nature must find con¬ 
summation in action. Ideas expressed in philosophy and 
history need not of necessity work out into practice. But 
by definition religious ideas must work out into the realm 
of associated life. Ideas of tone, of color, of line, must work 
out into music, into painting, into building. 

Moreover, both activities arise from tensions. Religion 
arises out of the tensions occurring in life; art arises out of 
the tensions involved in observations of the world. Out of 
these tensions, in so far as religion is concerned, attitudes, ad¬ 
ages, philosophies, rituals, ceremonials, theologies, churches 
and organizations arise. Out of the restlessness and sensi- 


128 


ART AND RELIGION 


tivity of the artist, paintings, music, churches and museums 
have arisen. Again the advances in both art and religion 
are the result of tensions which arise in individuals who 
have been touched by the already produced expressions of 
art and religion. Both activities depend on techniques and 
the perfection of these techniques. This is generally under¬ 
stood among artists; it is not so well understood among re¬ 
ligionists. The long and arduous training of the artist is 
proof of the value which the artist places upon technique. 
There is no freedom of artistic expression until the artist 
perfects his technique. He is unable to take vigorously his 
responsibility for bringing loveliness into the world in his 
fullest efficiency until color and sound can be used with 
abandon. As religionists we can learn from the artist in this 
respect. To be sure, the field of religion is more complex 
but the method is the same. 

Art and religion are alike in that they hold a place for 
both action and contemplative appreciation. The religionist 
turning the other cheek, loving his enemies, building for a 
better society, also prays, attends ceremonials, reads the Scrip¬ 
tures and appreciates the religious nobility in the life of 
leaders and of common men. And it is an observable fact 
that those who excel in action have the greatest capacity for 
appreciation. Jesus could best appreciate Gandhi; and simi¬ 
larly St. Francis, Schweitzer. 

Both religion and art are spiritual and both deal with 
something that involves a total and consummatory experi¬ 
ence. A person using the ideas of religion continuously, logi¬ 
cally and habitually, develops a religious quality or spirit. 
He will have a quality that adds up to more than the sum of 
all the individual techniques. So with the artist. After 


B. FRED WISE 


129 

long practice with color, with value, with composition, the 
painter will throw on the canvas all these elements in such 
expressive design that the observer can catch a feeling and 
quality that is more than the sum of the individual ele¬ 
ments of the picture. This will be high art, and will stand 
as a purveyor of loveliness to a waiting world. 

In their ultimate characteristics both religion and art work 
in the realm of the imagination. Here man lifts himself by 
the creative powers that are within him, in the area of reli¬ 
gion by projecting the great ideals for the individual and 
for society, in art by the better rearranging of sense impres¬ 
sions. No one can be either religious or artistic without 
cultivating the imagination and allowing for the releases and 
inspirations that ensue. 

Finally, there are the uses religion makes of art. It has been 
noted that of the two activities religion is much more in¬ 
clusive and stands for a much wider range of ideas and prac¬ 
tices. In fact, from the functional point of view religion is 
a quality that should illuminate all of life. Art is the or¬ 
ganization of sense impressions. Art is not essential to reli¬ 
gion and religion is not essential to art. When religion feels 
the need of a more vivid stirring of the imagination, where 
plastic symbols are needed, art is used. 

Religious systems have varied greatly in the uses of art, 
just as they have varied in the uses of science and organiza¬ 
tional processes. Historically early Semitic religions used 
little art; early Egyptian used much. The Greeks did not 
discriminate between what was religion and what was art. 
The early Christian church was torn by the iconoclastic 
controversy. Most modern ethical religions are quite bar¬ 
ren of artistic expression. When the Gothic cathedrals were 


i30 


ART AND RELIGION 


built, the Roman Catholic Church used artistic devices to 
enliven every sense — glowing colored glass for the eyes, 
sculpture for the sense of touch, music for the ears, incense 
for the sense of smell, aspiring heights for the sense of equi¬ 
librium, vast space for the sense of distance. 

Some devotees of art object to art’s being thus used. The 
art-for-art’s-sake cult insists that art is prostituted if used for 
any other purpose than for itself, that art is an end in itself. 
It has also been said that religion enslaves art, and Byzantine 
iconography is cited as an illustration of this. Such an ex¬ 
ample, however, is as much a commentary on religion as on 
art. It may be pointed out that great revolutions have oc¬ 
curred in art as a result of the interest of the artist in depicting 
religious subjects. The wall of the Arena Chapel in Padua 
by Giotto gave intimation of the coming Renaissance. Ma¬ 
saccio in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence brought to light 
new methods of handling perspective. Michelangelo cre¬ 
ated a new world of form in the Sistine Chapel. Certainly 
our Western music was born and nourished within the walls 
of the sanctuary and flowered there. And now even Picasso 
with his Guernica murals brings a real religious note to mod¬ 
ern art. 

Art is indeed a handmaid of religion, symbolizing, ritual¬ 
izing and objectifying the intellectual phase as the need for 
such symbols arises, warming, enriching and dramatizing the 
emotional phase of religion. 


XII 


THE ARCHITECTURE OF A 
FREE CHURCH 

HENRY K. HOLSMAN 

T-J OW HARDLY can an observer record the influence on 
architecture of forty years of the life of a great and 
benevolent philosopher and teacher, lived in such a sensitive 
and impressionably youthful community as that to be found 
in and around a great university, even though the observer 
and reporter be a student and practitioner of architecture. 

Architecture is the complicated and subtle art of designing 
buildings to be created, used and enjoyed by men. A build¬ 
ing is not a manifestation of nature except that the mind of 
man, its creator, is itself a manifestation of nature — human 
nature. The product of architecture is compounded of se¬ 
lected material and imposed spiritual forces, composed of the 
stamina of “ sticks and stones ” and their form and color in 
light and shade, and the mental and emotional forces of hu¬ 
man nature. 

In details, architecture is not unlike a language, a system 
of symbols derived from the static and active phenomena of 
nature. The virtues of life and death, truth and beauty, 
courage and strength, rhythm and repose, may be easily ex¬ 
pressed by architectural units; and just as unit word symbols 
may be composed into related phrases to express more ade- 
131 


i 3 2 THE ARCHITECTURE OF A FREE CHURCH 

quately the whole meaning, so architectural units may be 
composed into related rhythmical spaces to express more 
completely the design and to fulfill its whole function. 

Good design consists of just enough material of just the 
right form and color, no more and no less, to fulfill all its 
functions easily, gracefully; that is, to produce pleasing emo¬ 
tions in the user or beholder. Architecture is the invention 
not of a man, but of a race of men, and whether it be good 
is not the judgment of any critic, however learned, but the 
opinion, the active response, of the people who use it or 
behold it. 

Perhaps we can best understand the inner meaning or the 
underlying essence of architecture by examining the funda¬ 
mentals of the design of a common house. In domestic ar¬ 
chitecture the home is a sort of chambered nautilus of light 
and air, where the human family organism, sheltered from 
adverse elements, is born and reared, works and plays in ful¬ 
fillment of its function in the universe of life. Spaces must 
be provided for sociability and privacy and repose, for pre¬ 
paring and consuming food, for cleansing, and for receiving 
things and discharging refuse — all family functions en¬ 
cumbered with all the manifold manifestations of the oppos¬ 
ing yet cooperating spirit of growth and decay, life and death. 
If the arrangement of these forms and spaces is such that 
pleasing emotions are produced or heightened and irritations 
are avoided or suppressed, within and without the family life, 
the form fulfills its function and the architecture is good. 

Since “ all things human change,” except perhaps human 
nature itself, domestic architecture need not follow old tra¬ 
ditions in form so long as it provides for the prevailing family 
functions; in fact it must follow in tune with modern changes 


HENRY K. HOLSMAN 


*33 

in community life and customs, in transportation, communi¬ 
cation, schools, libraries, theaters, parks, hospitals, churches 
and other extensions of the home, all of which serve to sim¬ 
plify, modernize and intensify the individual family institu¬ 
tion and its house. 

The exterior aspects of the details of form and color in 
which the house is clothed seem to be determined somewhat 
by tradition, but mostly by transitory fashion. It is inter¬ 
esting to note that in countries and communities where, by 
long established fashion, people’s hats are high-pitched with 
broad, upturned rims, as in China, the prevailing roofs take 
on the same form. Where the head is turbaned, as in India, 
the important buildings are finished with domes, and where 
hats are brimless and flat on top, house roofs are flat and 
without projection over the walls. If this be a truly psycho¬ 
logical effect on architectural style, it is probable that as long 
as men prefer protecting brims on their hats they will require 
projecting roofs and eaves to cover their houses. In America, 
however, effective tradition in houses is short-lived. They 
require only the comfortable baronial doorway or the useless 
early colonial window blinds to produce the feeling of satis¬ 
factory regard for recent ancestral notions. 

Church architecture, on the other hand, must house a re¬ 
ligious institution whose functions, ceremonial forms and 
rituals are rooted in the remote past. So long as religious 
usage clings to these traditions, the housing of the institution 
must, in some measure, cling to the corresponding, concomi¬ 
tant architectural forms, modified perhaps as much as the 
particular traditional religious service has been modified to 
suit modern community life. 

Since the main church room is to accommodate an audi- 


134 THE ARCHITECTURE OF A FREE CHURCH 

ence rather than a mass of people, the traditional nave be¬ 
comes enclosed, separated side aisles disappear and an audi¬ 
torium is produced whose material, form and proportion may 
augment and clarify the spoken word, retain the necessary 
resonance for musical sound, and yet impress the mind with 
traditional religious feeling without violating modern con¬ 
ceptions of beauty and integrity. 

So the design of a church by and for Dr. Ames and his 
congregation partakes of English Gothic, with moldings, 
niches, symbolic carvings and paintings, softened by the dic¬ 
tates of modern taste, the most modern symbol being that 
invented by Dr. Ames himself and carved over the entrance 
to his robing room. 

Further persistence of tradition, or blending of the past 
with the present, is seen in the baptismal pool placed out of 
sight — out of mind, too — under the stage platform of the 
Sunday school assembly room, and the traditional altar in 
the chancel, replaced by a table spread with the ceremonial 
elements of the last supper of the disciples of Christ, the 
symbolic base of this denomination. 

The integrity and sincerity of the inspirer of this building, 
Dr. Ames, is reflected by the thick masonry walls of actual 
stone inside and outside, and his courageous spirit of exu¬ 
berant youth is expressed by the high solid stone columns 
and soaring arches separating his social side aisle from the 
auditorium. 

But in all spatial architecture “ the plan is the thing,” fun¬ 
damental. Therefore the best evaluation of Dr. Ames’s in¬ 
fluence on architecture, the subject of this essay, can be 
reached by a study of the plan of the church building he 
and his associates produced in the middle period of his forty 


HENRY K. HOLSMAN 


i35 

years of thinking and teaching in this community. The 
building is his creation. His mental and emotional forces 
assembled the means and materials and selected the crafts¬ 
men and experts to interpret his thoughts and translate them 
into a fulfillment of the functions of a religious house as 
he conceived them. 

Why, for example, is the narthex to the auditorium for 
formal religious services merged into the same space as the 
vestibule to the less formal “ church house ” for the social 
form of religious service, or why was the east aisle enlarged 
and equipped with a fireplace to invite the lingering audi¬ 
ence, friends and disciples, to discuss the intimate affairs of 
life with, as they have just been interpreted by, the preacher? 
Why were the attractive dining room and adequate kitchen 
placed in such juxtaposition to the lounge and narthex that 
the congregation is naturally invited to pass from the sym¬ 
bolic last supper of Christ to the real breaking of bread with 
the disciples and their children at noonday dinners or mid¬ 
week suppers ? The answer is clear in Dr. Ames’s character 
and in his teachings of the meaning of modern religion to 
the multitudes of disciples who have been attracted and held 
under the spell of the voices of this arrangement of “ sticks 
and stones,” an arrangement that gently persuaded them, 
young and old, to linger all day and well into the evening 
within these walls whose suggestive sights and sounds they 
learned to love and respect. 

The building is not a perfect or complete expression of 
the leader’s thoughts and feelings to every beholder, any more 
than the millions of words and phrases he sent forth from its 
chancel are a complete expression to all those who heard, but 
what they heard here supplemented by what they saw here, 


136 THE ARCHITECTURE OF A FREE CHURCH 

what they felt in the presence of these “ sticks and stones ” 
and what the relative spaces, architectural phrases, impressed 
on them within these walls, became in some measure a part 
of their being and went with them radiantly everywhere to 
be expressed by them to their associates and their children’s 
children to the ends of the earth. That is, in some measure, 
the architectural influence of Dr. Edward Scribner Ames. 


XIII 


RELIGION AND HIGHER EDUCATION 

STERLING W. BROWN 

"DOTH RELIGION and higher education in colonial 
America were importations from Europe where the 
college had developed as an offspring of the church. Despite 
the fact that the seed of the colonial churches was sown by 
religious radicals, some of them virtual exiles from their 
homelands, the resulting harvest of institutions proved to be 
made up of reproductions of European prototypes. It was 
not until after the Revolution and the attainment of national 
independence that the roots of the American denominations 
were severed from their European soil. This was true in 
spite of the fact that the American people at the time of the 
Revolution possessed a larger degree of religious freedom 
than was to be found in any other country. 1 

The European lineage of higher education in colonial 
America was even more direct than that of religion. The 
first institution of higher learning (Harvard, 1636) was a 
miniature model of Emanuel College in the English uni¬ 
versity, Cambridge, and was located in Newtowne, renamed 
“ Cambridge ” after the place in England where many Har¬ 
vard patrons had received their education. William and 
Mary (1693) and Yale (1701) were typically English in 
their ideals and pattern. The other colonial colleges, Co¬ 
lumbia (Kings), Brown, Rutgers, Pennsylvania University, 
137 


RELIGION AND HIGHER EDUCATION 


138 

Dartmouth and Princeton were not essentially different. 
Through this heritage the early American college was a 
descendant of the medieval universities which were crea¬ 
tions of the church. 

The religious purpose was dominant in the founding of 
each of the colonial colleges and, with the exception of Penn¬ 
sylvania University, each institution was sponsored by a re¬ 
ligious denomination. Not only were these early institutions 
of higher education religious in motivation and sponsorship, 
but their curriculums were blends of the liberal arts and the 
theological studies of their European prototypes. Their pri¬ 
mary function was the “ propagation of the faith ” — to edu¬ 
cate ministers and “ to teach and engage the children to 
know God in Jesus Christ.” It may be said that the three 
R’s of the colonial institutions of higher learning were 
“readin’ and ’ritin’ and religion.” This conception of the 
colleges and universities as institutions for the preservation 
and propagation of religious faith was rooted in Old World 
tradition and practice where universities and colleges were 
functional operations of religion. 

American higher education and religion did not long re¬ 
main static. Both colleges and churches soon developed dis¬ 
tinctive characteristics. The American arts college, as it 
developed against the background of frontier culture, has 
no exact counterpart in the educational systems of other 
countries. The larger religious denominations, in the face 
of economic, social and political influences, developed adapta¬ 
tions and distinctive trends which were peculiarly American. 
One of these peculiarities was the relationship which they 
sustained to higher education. 

In the minds of the founding fathers of American democ- 


STERLING W. BROWN 


i39 


racy, education belonged primarily under the control of re¬ 
ligion. Neither education nor religion was provided for in 
the Constitution. This did not indicate a lack of interest in 
religion. Since there were too many churches to select any 
one of them as an established religion, and since schools were 
traditionally connected with churches, the practical solution 
was to leave both religion and education to the states. As a 
consequence there was embedded in the Constitution the 
principle that Congress should make no law “ respecting 
an establishment of religion.” 

Very early in the national period there came a new motiva¬ 
tion for general education. If government was to be a func¬ 
tion of the people they must be provided with education 
enough to assure intelligent citizenship. So the responsibility 
for general education began to shift from the church to the 
state. The result was a system of general education directed 
and supported by the individual states. Higher education 
remained almost completely in the hands of the church until 
the rise of the state universities and colleges in the second 
half of the nineteenth century. Even then the churches re¬ 
mained in control of their own institutions of higher learn¬ 
ing and established others, but there was a gradual shading 
off of denominational control and in some instances the 
development of great urban institutions supported by philan¬ 
thropy. 

After the Revolutionary War the American churches fol¬ 
lowed the westward moving population across the Alle¬ 
ghenies to the Mississippi valley and across the plains and 
Rockies to the Pacific. This shifting frontier culture de¬ 
manded that education be brought to the students; it was 
too far to send them back east. Thus higher education served 


140 RELIGION AND HIGHER EDUCATION 

for the spread of general culture and the propagation of the 
Christian faith. The total number of these colleges became 
surprisingly large during the first half of the nineteenth cen¬ 
tury, nearly every state containing at least one for each large 
denomination. The general culture of the period was poured 
in denominational molds under “ Christian influences.” It 
remained for the period following the Civil War to bring 
forth the rapid spread of state universities, colleges and 
normal schools with tax support. There were, to be sure, 
several state universities before 1870, but they were small and 
had little prestige. Even in these tax-supported institutions 
it was difficult to maintain a proper balance in the employ¬ 
ment of faculties in order to keep a non-denominational char¬ 
acter and free the curriculum of “ the incubus of Baptist 
Latin, Congregational Greek, Methodist philosophy and Pres¬ 
byterian astronomy.” So it may be said that higher educa¬ 
tion in America before 1870 was provided very largely by the 
schools of the different religious denominations rather than 
by the state. Of the 246 colleges established by the end of 
the year i860, but 17 were state institutions. These facts in¬ 
dicate the reciprocal relationship which religion and higher 
education sustained up to the last quarter of the century, 
when the rise of tax-supported institutions drove a wedge 
into this relationship and temporarily erected a barrier be¬ 
tween the higher learning and the higher living. 

Higher education began to be thought of as an obligation 
of the government very early in our national history. Presi¬ 
dent Washington cherished the idea of establishing a national 
university in the city of Washington, even leaving in his will 
a substantial sum of money to start the endowment. (Noth¬ 
ing is known today as to what became of the money.) Presi- 


STERLING W. BROWN 


*4* 

dents Adams, Madison, Monroe and the second Adams also 
favored the idea, but nothing ever came of it. The idea 
that the several states should provide and support institutions 
of higher education had more success. After the coming of 
nationality there arose a feeling that the existing church col¬ 
leges represented the interests of particular groups and not 
the interests of the state itself. The rise of the new demo¬ 
cratic spirit after 1820 intensified this view. It was argued 
that colleges were institutions to mold the society of the fu¬ 
ture, and that this was an affair of the state. Hence a desire 
arose to crown the school system with great universities sup¬ 
ported and controlled by the states. The extreme view held 
that all higher education should be under the control of the 
state, but the Dartmouth College decision blocked develop¬ 
ment in this direction. The result was twofold: increased 
private and denominational efforts on the one hand and the 
establishment of state institutions on the other. Prior to this 
decision several states had already made beginnings. The 
Georgia legislature, in 1784, set aside forty thousand acres of 
land to endow a “ seminary of learning ” — the embryonic 
form of Georgia University. The University of North Caro¬ 
lina was chartered in 1789. South Carolina organized a 
university in 1801. The University of Tennessee was pro¬ 
jected in 1794; Virginia, Indiana, Alabama, Ohio, Vermont, 
Michigan, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Flor¬ 
ida followed. 

The spread of the tax-supported institutions was given tre¬ 
mendous impetus with the passage of the Morrill Act of 1862, 
by which the federal government gave aid to the states in the 
form of land grants for the establishment of agricultural and 
mechanical colleges. Although the financial returns from 


I 4 2 


RELIGION AND HIGHER EDUCATION 


land grants were not as high as was expected, the educational 
returns were astounding. New and vigorous colleges were 
created; small state universities awakened into new life; 
agriculture and engineering developed as professions; indi¬ 
vidual states have since contributed ever increasing appropri¬ 
ations for their institutions, until today they overshadow all 
but the larger denominational or endowed universities. 2 

This shift of higher education from the church to the state 
brought about a strained relationship between religious forces 
and the tax-supported institutions. State universities, fearing 
the charge of sectarianism, tended to ignore religion as a vital 
interest of life and a part of the cultural heritage. They did 
not dare offer religious instruction at public expense. With 
few exceptions the professors and administrators were sym¬ 
pathetic toward religion. Few state universities have ever 
deserved the charge of being “ godless.” It was unfortunately 
a fact that in the mind of the time religion did not rise above 
or exist independent of sectarianism. Many of the privately 
endowed institutions retained, by virtue of their original 
religious purposes, religious instruction as a part of their 
curriculums, but it sometimes suffered through neglect. 

The problem of religion in the denominational colleges 
took a different turn. These included (or required) religious 
instruction as a part of the curriculum and professed in pub¬ 
lic utterances of their presidents and professors that they were 
Christian. But their institutional practices and the reaction¬ 
ary attitude of students against required courses in religion 
and compulsory chapel attendance weakened these claims. 
From a functional point of view the orthodox denomina¬ 
tional colleges merely maintained and promoted their own 
religious faiths. 


STERLING W. BROWN 


M3 

While the state universities originally gave little, if any, 
place to religious instruction, sympathetic support was given 
to religion as an extra-curricular activity. This interest has 
been expressed by student religious organizations such as 
the Christian associations. It is important to note, however, 
that the function of these organizations has not been strictly 
educational. They have been more concerned with the prac¬ 
tice of religion and have not approached it from the point of 
view of the scholar who would develop his subject as a field 
of study to be treated objectively. 

A new move to take religious instruction into tax-sup¬ 
ported institutions began a few years before the opening of 
the twentieth century. This new movement took the form 
of Bible chairs, schools of religion or foundations placed 
beside the campuses of state schools. Their functions usually 
included religious instruction, religious guidance and promo¬ 
tion of religious activities. This technique has had a phe¬ 
nomenal growth since the opening of the present century. 
Tax-supported institutions cooperated by giving credit for 
the instruction and encouragement for the practical activities. 
At the present time almost every state university in the United 
States offers accredited courses in religion which are for the 
most part supported voluntarily by individuals and religious 
organizations. At least a half-dozen state institutions now 
include religious instruction as a part of their regular cur¬ 
ricular offerings, financed by state support. Among others 
are the universities of Michigan, Virginia, Oregon and South 
Carolina, and Iowa State College. 

These facts indicate that there has come about a new rap¬ 
prochement between religion and higher education. This 
has been possible because of a correction of the ideals of re- 


i44 


RELIGION AND HIGHER EDUCATION 


ligion on one side and reconsideration of the fundamental 
nature of education on the other. The result is that religion 
and higher education have moved toward a recognition of 
a common goal. This unity promises to become even more 
complete under the force of the present criticism of the tend¬ 
ency in American higher education toward vocationalism. 

The current tendency of these two significant human inter¬ 
ests to move toward a closer unity is a natural consequence 
of their objectives, which have emerged out of the historic 
and functional relationship between American churches and 
colleges. Institutionally religion and education may be sepa¬ 
rated from each other, but functionally no such division is 
possible except by focusing attention on the opposite ex¬ 
tremes of the two functional areas. Church and state cannot 
draw a clear line of demarcation between their areas of serv¬ 
ice. Man is not a being with distinct temporal and eternal 
interests. Therefore there is no validity in the antithesis 
which sets religious interests over against secular interests. 
There are no compartments of the personality divided off 
from others which are non-religious. There is one person¬ 
ality requiring for its highest development the training of 
all its powers. When the ideals and objectives of progressive 
higher education are compared to those of progressive re¬ 
ligion, there is between them no such gap as has been com¬ 
monly supposed. Religion and higher education do not 
enter divergent paths, but tend toward a higher unity in their 
objectives. If love is the supreme law of religion it is none 
the less valid for education. Both the church and the state 
have a tremendous stake in higher education. In the present 
chaotic condition of American culture every resource of both 
church and state is needed to the end that the higher learn- 


STERLING W. BROWN 


M5 


ing may eventuate in the higher living. The church empha¬ 
sizes the problem of being; the state is more concerned with 
doing. Religion deals with the ends of life; the university 
is more concerned with the means of life. Both higher edu¬ 
cation and religion work for a closer connection between 
the actual and the ideal. 

The shift of American higher education from the human¬ 
istic to the technical has not been altogether favorable for its 
unity with religion, for there has resulted no well rounded 
training of the modern man. Even he cannot live by bread 
alone, nor by the sciences, though both are essential for the 
attainment of the good life. They are the means of life but 
not the end, as they have tended to become. 3 There has been 
too much effort put into training to make a living rather 
than teaching how to live the best possible life. This neglect 
of the higher values of human life is the outstanding weak¬ 
ness of higher education as sponsored in tax-supported insti¬ 
tutions. For value is a term indicating those goods which 
make life meaningful, “ those things for which we act, the 
termini of all our striving.” 4 Spiritual or religious values 
are the interests which lift us out of our everyday world and 
present to us the possibilities of higher living—The possi¬ 
bility of being heroic, sacrificing and loving in our attitude 
toward the world of human need. These values emerge out 
of the experiences of the race and are relative. Religious 
values are higher values that arise as a phase of a culture. 
Their most distinctive characteristic is their “cosmic” na¬ 
ture, values that somehow inhere in the reality of the world 
so that they have a peculiar validity and an enduring nature. 
The three great themes of higher education are truth, ad¬ 
justment and value. Our institutions of higher learning have 


RELIGION AND HIGHER EDUCATION 


146 

in the past concentrated upon truth. In recent decades there 
has been a new emphasis upon adjustment. But of the three, 
value is of the greatest importance. 

It is on this theme of value that religion and higher educa¬ 
tion meet. It is at this point also that American higher edu¬ 
cation has been woefully weak. The truth-adjustment type 
of training has not produced a citizenry ready to assume that 
democratic function which is a necessary part of our national 
ideal. The right use of knowledge is quite as important as 
the possession of it. And there must be a place at which the 
higher values are the subject of investigation and instruc¬ 
tion on the basis of existing data. If the university is to teach 
how to live as regards maintenance, effectiveness and enjoy¬ 
ment, it is important that values be included as a curricular 
subject. It is important because during the last fifty years 
a change has been coming over Western culture — a de¬ 
cadence due to the lack of any central and unifying principle. 
Dogmas, creeds and traditions have crumbled. What is im¬ 
portant is, of course, that the spirit which vitalized and de¬ 
veloped these dogmas, creeds and traditions has also been 
lost. The old order has collapsed and we have not yet de¬ 
veloped a higher order to take its place. No thoughtful ob¬ 
server looking over Europe today can fail to realize that we 
are separated from complete chaos only by a natural barrier 
that grows more narrow each day. 

There are some indications that a recovery of unity in the 
two fields of religion and higher education is on the way. 
The taproot of that recovery draws its life from the growing 
recognition by higher education of the vital connection be¬ 
tween truth and value. Therefore it would be particularly 
appropriate for every institution of higher learning to present 


STERLING W. BROWN 


M7 

to its students as historic facts the great value schemes which 
we call religious. For the university should be concerned 
with the giving of a sympathetic interpretation of the human 
situation as it really is. In addition to the analysis and classi¬ 
fication of these realities by the scientific method, the uni¬ 
versity must present the world of values and ideals, compris¬ 
ing the noblest attainments of human faculties. Among 
other subjects within this category will be art and its com¬ 
panion aesthetics, philosophy with its statement of what 
seems reasonable, and religion expressing the fundamental 
convictions of the human race. 

Curricular offerings in these subjects are the scaffolding 
upon which the student may stand as he builds his temple 
of faith. These subjects are non-sectarian and they bear the 
same relation to religious faith that studies in fine arts have 
to an appreciation of the beautiful. There is no legitimate 
reason why religious instruction should not be offered in all 
institutions of higher learning. To omit it is not only to 
commit a cultural blunder but to remove from the heart of 
education any adequate consideration of value. Every stu¬ 
dent is entitled to a consideration of the spiritual heritage of 
the race, for religion has a place along with morality, art and 
science as an aspect of the cultural environment of mankind. 
If religion as a vital phase of our American culture is cut off 
from the main arteries of civilization, the institutions of 
higher education, it cannot function as a unifying force in 
the life of the nation. Religion must be either an inherent 
and permanent agent of civilization in its wholeness, or it is 
an artificial element cut off from the sources of its energy. 
And the present situation calls for a religion reconciled with 
and springing from the intellectual achievements of modern 


RELIGION AND HIGHER EDUCATION 


148 

life. Today there is a new framework for human values. 
The twentieth century individual is committed to what the 
physical, biological and social sciences teach him about the 
world he lives in. This means that there is an ethical and 
religious revolution of major scope and power under way 
among us. 

The inherent difficulties that arise with the inclusion of re¬ 
ligious instruction in the curriculum of a university are the 
same as those existing in the teaching of art. Values tend to 
be caught rather than taught. But a consideration of the 
nature and function of religion is a necessary basis for the 
development of a vital religious faith in the same way in 
which a study of the basic nature of form is necessary for an 
understanding and appreciation of art. Therefore there 
should be in all institutions of higher learning a spirit that 
will open the way for the student to develop a religious out¬ 
look upon life. This spirit will enhance an attitude of mind 
which is reverent toward the greatness and mystery of the 
universe, an awareness of man’s dependence upon it. Rever¬ 
ence is not religion but it is the favorable soil out of which a 
religious faith grows. And in the light of modern knowl¬ 
edge the wonder and beauty of the natural world are not 
less. The inclusion of basic studies in the field of values in 
the curriculums of institutions of higher education would 
help to span the gap between these two great functional areas 
of human endeavor. Not to do so hastens the degeneration 
of higher education into fact-gathering and logical exercise 
and relegates religion into the limbo of superstition and an¬ 
cient pietisms. 


STERLING W. BROWN 


M9 


NOTES 

1 William Warren Sweet, The Story of Religions in America (Harper & Bros., 
1930), p. 4 - 

2 Ellwood Patterson Cubberley, Public Education in the United States (Hough¬ 
ton Mifflin Co., 1919; revised ed., 1934), p. 211. 

3 Robert Ulich, Fundamentals of Democratic Education (American Book Co., 
1940), pp. 163-64. 

4 William E. Hocking, “ Can Values be Taught? ” in The Obligation of Uni¬ 
versities to the Social Order, a volume issued by the Conference of Universities on 
the Obligation of Universities to the Social Order (New York University Press, 
1932), p. 332 . 


XIV 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 

ROY G. ROSS 

'T'HE DEVELOPMENT of the religious education move- 
ment in America during the past quarter-century con¬ 
stitutes a superb demonstration of the possibilities of a 
functional approach to religion. The modern religious edu¬ 
cation movement began with the turn of the twentieth cen¬ 
tury. It rose out of a growing consciousness that a more 
effective type of Christian education was essential to the 
preservation of religion as an integral part of our culture. 
The impulse was stimulated by the increasing emphasis on 
education and the rapid advances of our public school system 
and by the new tendency to apply scientific method to the 
processes of personality development. 

This religious education movement has been nurtured by 
a new series of national and state organizations, both de¬ 
nominational and interdenominational in scope, which came 
into being largely as expressions of an expanding fellowship 
having the children and youth of America as its focus of in¬ 
terest. This basis of organization was strongly in contrast 
with agencies of a preceding generation which were designed 
to perpetuate particular bodies of dogma and to add members 
to the respective branches of the church. The heritage of 
faith which was used in either case was the same. The out- 
150 


ROY G. ROSS 


151 

come was different because of the difference in the beginning 
point. 

ORGANIZATION FOR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 

In 1903, the Religious Education Association was formed 
under the leadership of the foremost educators of the nation, 
with President William Rainey Harper as its chief officer. 
This association, which was a fellowship of individuals out¬ 
side the ecclesiastical machinery of the church, announced its 
purpose to be “ to inspire the educational forces of our coun¬ 
try with the religious ideal; to inspire the religious forces of 
our country with the educational ideal.” It attempted to 
carry on a critical analysis of all aspects of existing and pro¬ 
posed programs for religious training. In its field it made 
a significant contribution. Through the years, it has re¬ 
vealed both the strengths and the weaknesses of an agency 
which attempted to operate within the range of interests 
common to persons of the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish 
faiths. 

In the years immediately following the formation of this 
association, the impact of the same educational approach be¬ 
gan to find expression in the organized life of the church 
itself. During the early years of the twentieth century, a 
series of denominational boards had come into being, dedi¬ 
cated to the task of improving the quality of work done by 
their respective local churches. Boards already existing were 
stirred by a new interest in providing a trained leadership 
and in building programs on scientific principles. 

As the staffs of these boards centered their attention upon 
improved services to children and youth, they soon became 
aware of the vast range of interests which were common 


152 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


to the several denominations. The natural result was the 
organization of the Sunday School Council of Evangelical 
Denominations. Through this council, denominational 
leaders with their respective deep-rooted convictions joined 
forces in many activities intended to improve the teaching 
work of their churches. They set themselves to evaluating 
prevailing procedures in the light of a growing body of edu¬ 
cational theory, and to testing such theory in demonstration 
projects. They took account of scientific studies regarding 
the nature of the pupil and the laws of learning and character 
development. Through the council a new type of leadership 
training was developed along lines which were adopted by 
many denominations. Common standards were devised for 
measuring the progress of local Sunday schools and classes. 

During the next decade, these same professional leaders 
found that they had a common bond with laymen who were 
also attempting to serve childhood and youth. Thus there 
came another merger. 

THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 

The organization of the International Council of Religious 
Education in 1922, as a merger of the Sunday School Council 
of Evangelical Denominations and the International Sunday 
School Association, was both a triumph of united Protestant¬ 
ism and a tribute to the validity of a functional approach to 
religion. The history of the council’s activities during the 
past two decades moreover has substantiated the conviction 
of those who had faith in this approach. Through the years 
the council has centered its attention upon persons — chil¬ 
dren, youth and adults. It has not attempted to resolve dif¬ 
ferences of conviction by devising a common theological 


ROY G. ROSS 


153 

formulation. It has conceded the right of individuals and 
denominations to these differences but centered its attention 
upon tasks to be done. It has not set out to effect Christian 
union, but it has developed an amazing unity of mind and 
spirit as a by-product of functional cooperation. 

The council has included in its membership individuals 
and denominations of many shades of conviction as respects 
theology, sociology and church polity. It has welcomed the 
contributions of all in the task of discovering how to assist 
children to develop and deepen the religious values in their 
lives. Its committees for various functions have consisted of 
such leaders as chose voluntarily to participate in their work. 
No participant has been expected to use the product of the 
joint effort in which he participated except as he found it to 
be of practical value in serving his constituency. Staffs of 
constituent denominations have been left free to use any or all 
of the council’s products according to their choosing. When 
they preferred, they have adapted materials and utilized them 
under their own imprimaturs. 

It might seem that such a procedure would result in chaos. 
Instead it has eventuated in a constantly growing fellowship 
of leaders with an ever widening scope of common interests 
and a growing body of common convictions. 

Today the International Council has forty-two denomina¬ 
tions and thirty state councils in its membership. The staffs 
of the educational boards of these denominations still reserve 
the right to differ. However, it would be difficult, except for 
difference of labels, to differentiate between the educational 
programs of many of the participating boards. Out of the 
fellowship of the council and the process of cooperative study 
of the needs of persons, there has unconsciously come a sur- 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


i54 

prising degree of unanimity regarding both method and 
program. 


ACHIEVEMENTS IN COOPERATION 

The first major cooperative achievement under the newly 
formed International Council was the formulation of com¬ 
mon objectives for educational work. The statement of ob¬ 
jectives which was adopted in the year 1930 has stood until 
the present year without revision. These objectives have been 
the theme for numerous books, articles in periodicals and 
addresses. They have guided the efforts of editors, adminis¬ 
trators and teachers in many denominations. They have 
bound together a large fellowship of persons who, while dif¬ 
fering greatly as to theological belief and even as to proce¬ 
dures, have nevertheless recalled their common bond as to 
ultimate purpose. 

Following closely after the formulation of a common 
statement of objectives there came a great body of resource 
data, the result of a far-reaching research program. Repre¬ 
sentatives of many Protestant denominations, through age- 
level and functional committees of the council, instituted 
studies of the life situations, problems and relationships of 
persons of every age, and of the types of curriculum material 
which might be used in helping these persons in such situa¬ 
tions and relationships to achieve the kind of lives individu¬ 
ally and socially indicated by their avowed objectives. These 
and other like representatives also worked at the task of de¬ 
vising an effective curriculum and strategy for use in the 
training of leaders. 

These processes resulted in a rich body of material issued 
for Protestant church leaders in the form of a “ Curriculum 


ROY G. ROSS 


i55 


Guide ” of several volumes. Later these materials were sup¬ 
plemented by a series of resource materials for youth leaders 
under the caption, “ Christian Youth Building a New 
World,” and a like grouping for adults known as “ Learning 
for Life.” The most recent development is a proposed series 
of lesson committee outlines through which the members 
hope to join hands in the cooperative outlining of three new 
types of lesson topics and materials which, it is hoped, will 
meet the needs for all age groups of all faiths in varied types 
of geographical and social settings. These types will be 
utilized by denominational editors according to the interests 
or educational and cultural levels of their constituencies. 

COORDINATION OF FIELD FORCES 

Following a series of achievements in functional coopera¬ 
tion on the side of curriculum construction, Protestant church 
leaders have now undertaken to extend the principle of co¬ 
operation to their field operations. Here they have planned 
simultaneous promotion of emphases for consideration by 
local churches and communities. They have joined forces 
in making a concerted contribution to local communities 
through leadership education conferences. Where forces for 
such concerted action were inadequate, they have accepted 
territorial allocations of responsibilities for the leaders of sev¬ 
eral denominational boards on behalf of their respective edu¬ 
cational boards. For example, a national youth leader of the 
Presbyterian Board in 1940 might agree to serve the local 
church and community youth leaders of five states in the 
middle west on behalf of several denominational boards. 

In many cases these joint field activities have been admin¬ 
istered under the local aegis of state and city councils of 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


156 

religious education. These agencies originated as expres¬ 
sions of lay cooperation. Through the years, changes took 
place within their structures comparable to those on the na¬ 
tional level. Gradually they have adopted an administrative 
philosophy which makes their activities the program of the 
denominations in cooperation. As these changes have come, 
these councils have found themselves a part of the modern 
fellowship and have been approved as avenues of interde¬ 
nominational activity. 

Thus the influence of the functional approach of religion to 
the experience of growing persons has gradually drawn to¬ 
gether the leaders of many denominations which were his¬ 
torically widely separated by differences of theology and 
church polity. 

But the influence of such an education procedure has also 
gone much farther. It has resulted in the unification of the 
program of the local church into a comprehensive unit of 
religious life. It has brought integration of the programs 
of various city, state and national interdenominational agen¬ 
cies. It has stimulated the development of a great corps of 
voluntary field workers, who have prepared themselves for 
specialized service, and who serve large areas which are un¬ 
touched by the two thousand or more paid field representa¬ 
tives of denominational and interdenominational boards. It 
has resulted in a new approach to social reconstruction. 

INTEGRATION OF RELIGION IN CHARACTER EDUCATION 

It was inevitable that when religious education became 
person-centered, it should no longer be confined to any one 
phase of experience or any one institutional mold. Religious 
education, therefore, became concerned not only with cur- 


ROY G. ROSS 


i 57 


riculum and classroom procedure; it became interested in 
every aspect of the life of the child, the experience of his 
home, his school, his community and his social groups. It 
was concerned with his economic status, his leisure activities, 
and every factor which would have a part in determining his 
health of body, mind and spirit. It was only as these en¬ 
vironing factors were known that activities or materials for 
Christian education could be selected intelligently. 

But these same factors were also the interests of progressive 
public school leaders, social workers, playground directors, 
librarians and leaders of many activities. The child therefore 
has served as a center of interest around which there has come 
a gradual integration of the interests of the church school 
with those of all institutions for character education in the 
community. 

It is encouraging to note the practical results of such an 
integration of interests. The effect upon public school lead¬ 
ers is reflected in various pronouncements of the National 
Education Association. In the foreword of the Tenth Year¬ 
book of the Department of Superintendence of this associa¬ 
tion the following statement appears: 

The attitude of reverence toward a Supreme Being grows naturally 
in the real study of science, literature, music, art, and the general sweep 
of human affairs, as revealed most pointedly in the social studies. Only 
when teaching is based upon insight from which this attitude grows 
is it real teaching. 

Again under a discussion of “ Agencies of Character Educa¬ 
tion ” this yearbook declares: 

Our society today awaits a new integration of knowledge, aspiration, 
and human purpose which will take into account the findings of sci¬ 
ence, the theory of evolution, the advance of technology, the fact of ma- 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


158 

terial abundance, and the growing power of the laboring classes, as well 
as the influence of great spiritual leaders. Until such an integration is 
forthcoming, the present condition of moral chaos is likely to continue 
and the more fundamental problems of character education will defy 
solution. Whether this is the task of the church or some other agency 
we cannot say todays but it would seem to be a task that is essentially 
religious in nature. 

Comparable recognition of the essential place of religion in 
any adequate program for character development is found in 
the pronouncements of like agencies for other phases of char¬ 
acter development. The whole movement for community 
coordination of character building agencies, taking the form 
of local community councils and the National Conference on 
Community Coordination, is but the formal expression of 
the same integration of interests. 

The most recent expression of this child-centered integra¬ 
tion of interests is found in the development of the White 
House Conferences on Child Welfare. The first of these 
conferences, which was called by Theodore Roosevelt in 1909, 
was devoted quite largely to a consideration of the physical 
well-being of America’s children. During a period of thirty 
years, a growing recognition of the interplay of social forces 
on the life of the individual has led to a broadening of the 
character of the meetings, leading finally to recognition of 
the indispensable place of religion in the lives of children in 
our democracy, as a means of establishing and maintaining 
values in all aspects of child development. The mandate to 
this conference declared among other things: 

We are concerned about the children who are outside the reach of 
religious influences and are denied help in attaining faith in an ordered 
universe and in the fatherhood of God. 


ROY G. ROSS 


159 

The report of the 1940 conference affirmed that personal 
and social integrity is even more vital to democracy than 
physical fitness, technical efficiency and mental development. 
It stated: 

The child needs to have a conviction of his own intrinsic worth as 
a person and a conviction that he has a significant and sure place in a 
rational and moral universe. Whatever else we may help the child 
to achieve in the fulfillment of his needs, we have not met his greatest 
need until we have helped him to build a practical philosophy of 
life. . . . Historically man has achieved this end chiefly through art, 
philosophy, and religion. 

It should be observed that a functional approach to the 
needs of the child led such a group, including many of Amer¬ 
ica’s foremost minds, to reaffirm the integral place of religion 
in any adequate program of child development. On the basis 
of such an approach, persons of Protestant, Catholic and Jew¬ 
ish faiths found it possible to formulate a statement of com¬ 
mon conviction. 

At the same time there has come a new unity in the proc¬ 
esses of many local churches. The same children, youth and 
adults have been the focus of attention for the pulpit, the Sun¬ 
day school, the missionary society and the youth agencies. 
When programs were organization-centered, their leaders 
could go their separate ways, indifferent to overlapping of 
functions and equally indifferent to its effect upon the indi¬ 
vidual. As their leaders have become person-centered, and 
as they have taken as their common objective the develop¬ 
ment of Christian personalities, they could no longer ignore 
their relationships each to the other or the disintegrating 
effect of divergent impacts upon the persons they were at¬ 
tempting to serve. 


i6o 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


THE TREND TOWARD UNIFICATION 

A concomitant development may be noted in the general 
life of both the denominational and the interdenominational 
agencies of Protestantism. For years separate agencies were 
maintained within each denomination for administration of 
varied types of organized activity — home missions, foreign 
missions, ministerial relief, church maintenance, religious 
education, higher education, social welfare. To the same ex¬ 
tent, these divisions have characterized the interdenomina¬ 
tional agencies, which quite logically grew up out of the 
interfaith interest of these denominational boards. 

Once again through the influence, indeed the quite unrec¬ 
ognized influence, of the functional approach to the need of 
persons, and the attempt to relate all religion to life, there has 
come another merging of interests. Denominational boards 
have combined in a variety of new patterns. One denomina¬ 
tion has combined all its missionary activities under one 
agency. Numerous denominations have effected a unity of 
their varied educational agencies. A few have merged all the 
activities in the homeland in a new type of home missions 
agency. In most cases agencies for social education and ac¬ 
tion have been incorporated in either educational or mission¬ 
ary boards. 

The last twenty years have also witnessed a large number 
of interdenominational mergers. Federations of churches 
and councils of religious education in most cities of the na¬ 
tion have combined to form councils of churches, which ad¬ 
minister a vast array of interdenominational services. Within 
the last decade there have been like developments in a major¬ 
ity of those states which have agencies for interdenomina¬ 
tional activity. 


ROY G. ROSS 


161 


It might be noted, however, that in organizing for Chris¬ 
tian activity many factors must be taken into account. In 
theory, all the activities affecting the person should be admin¬ 
istered unitedly in order to guarantee integration, sequence 
and balance. Practically, such activities may best be adminis¬ 
tered through a series of agencies so as to avoid the danger of 
cumbersomeness, limited lay participation or a dulled edge of 
popular presentation. It remains yet to be determined 
whether extreme centralization will enhance or react dis¬ 
advantageous^ upon a life-centered approach to religion. 

Whatever the limitations of functional cooperation, there 
are now some dramatic manifestations of this development 
in the national interdenominational scene. Through the 
united Christian youth movement, forty-two denominations 
and thirteen interfaith or non-denominational agencies have 
joined their forces to make a united impact on the problems 
with which Christian youth are concerned. For four years 
the same denominations and other non-denominational 
agencies have coordinated their contributions to adult life 
through the united Christian adult movement. Comparable 
developments have taken place or have been begun in fields 
of research, radio, and lay development. 

Thus the Protestant forces of America are discovering the 
way to unity by the democratic process. As long as they fol¬ 
lowed the road of organizing around theological formula¬ 
tions or abstract dogmas, they divided and subdivided again 
and again over a period of several centuries. As they have 
learned the way of functional cooperation with their focus of 
attention on the persons to be served, they have, within a 
quarter-century, turned the tide of individualism and de¬ 
veloped an amazing unity of interest. But the interests of 
religious education have extended beyond the guidance of 


RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 


162 

individual reconstruction of life according to Christian pat¬ 
terns to the reconstruction of the social order. 

It is inevitable that, when religious education becomes 
person-centered, it becomes as broad in its interests as the 
factors which determine the character of the individual. 
When religious education seeks to change the character of 
the person, it seeks simultaneously to provide the type of 
social milieu which produces the desired kind of individual 
personality. It therefore is concerned both with the attitudes 
of the individual toward his environing world and with the 
effect of the environing world upon the individual. Reli¬ 
gious leaders have come to believe that, though an individual 
may be a Christian to a large degree in an unchristian social 
order, more persons can achieve a higher degree of Christian 
practice in the right kind of world. They have therefore set 
themselves to a study of the home, the school, and the other 
social institutions of the community and their influences 
upon the developing personality. They have sought to define 
religious values in terms of their implications for these agen¬ 
cies of character development. 

Religious education has also been concerned with the 
broader aspects and relationships of our current culture. It 
has studied the relationships of races, of social classes, of na¬ 
tions, with a view to determining the types of relationship 
which might be called Christian and which will contribute 
to the growth of Christian persons. Religious education has 
been primarily concerned with a definition of values, believ¬ 
ing that a Christian community can then devise the structures 
which make such values possible. 

Once again it is encouraging to review the progressive in¬ 
sight into social problems which has resulted from such an 


ROY G. ROSS 163 

approach by religious educators and their colleagues in other 
aspects of church life. The pronouncements of the religious 
bodies of America during the past decade testify to the vi¬ 
tality of the Christian religion when related to life. The 
similarity of the utterances of various denominational bodies 
indicates the unity of mind which can be achieved by Chris¬ 
tian people when they strive to interpret religion in terms of 
life values to be conserved. 

Thus it is that the religious education forces of America, 
together with other religious leaders, have discovered an ex¬ 
ceedingly vital approach to the task of propagating religion. 
It has unified the educational forces. It has brought an in¬ 
tegration of the total operations of the church. It has given 
religion a proper place at the center of the total task of char¬ 
acter development. It has made religion vital to the individ¬ 
ual in all his relationships and to the social order through 
which he functions. 


XV 


THE AUTHORITY OF THE 
NEW TESTAMENT 

S. VERNON McCASLAND 

/^VUR POINT of departure is given with the recognition 
that the ministry which this volume celebrates is an 
expression of Protestantism. Not that it has been committed 
to all the theology of this variety of Christianity, but that it 
belongs to a Protestant denomination and has felt at home 
with the basic Protestant beliefs in the religious freedom and 
autonomy of the individual. 

The Protestant movement in religion has been parallel to 
the growth of democracy in government; both have recog¬ 
nized the dignity of man as an individual person and given 
him his rights. This has meant the rejection of external 
authority of whatever kind and the substitution for it of the 
authority of truth which may be individually perceived and 
acted upon. This is a recognition of the inherent virtue in 
the development and exercise of man’s rational nature. 
What this means today is apparent from a contrast with the 
opposing tide of authoritarianism in both politics and re¬ 
ligion which has come upon the world. The totalitarian 
scorn of democracy is matched by the flight from reason 
which is evident in the return to orthodoxy in religion in 
its various forms. In many quarters of both Europe and 

164 


S. VERNON McCASLAND 


165 

America the slogan is being heard of a return to the au¬ 
thority of the church, or the creeds, or the Bible, or, especially, 
the New Testament. 

The New Testament has held a position of unique au¬ 
thority in Protestantism from the beginning. It was re¬ 
garded as the fulfillment of the Old Testament and so was 
held in higher esteem; and in this position it has undoubt¬ 
edly exercised a tremendous power in the development of 
our social institutions, as well as in personal experience. One 
of the Reformation’s most persuasive and influential slogans 
was that the Bible is the religion of Protestants. This idea 
was simple; it cut under the sacerdotalism of centuries; and 
it gave to individual persons a sense of their own dignity. 
The history of the last four centuries has witnessed the trans¬ 
forming power of this idea in all the nations of the world. 
This importance of the New Testament in our cultural his¬ 
tory, not to mention the rebirth of religious authoritarianism, 
is the justification for an effort to reappraise this ancient 
literature in the light of our modern knowledge. We want 
to know what it was in the use of the New Testament which 
exercised so much power over the world. Could a similar 
transformation be brought about today by a return to the 
New Testament ? If so, what conception of the New Testa¬ 
ment would bring about this result? 

To ask what Protestants meant when they declared that 
the New Testament was their religion is to raise only the 
first of three necessary questions. The second is inevitable 
for us today: Is the New Testament what the Protestant 
fathers thought it was ? The third is the most important of 
all: What was the new thing in human experience which 
Protestants discovered with their return to the New Testa- 


166 THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


ment which brought with it such new vigor into the life 
of man ? 


WHAT PROTESTANTS MEANT 

While the first question sounds simplest of all, it is in fact 
the most difficult to answer. There was little unity in early 
Protestantism, much less than there is today. The meaning 
of the slogan depended upon the particular sect, not to say 
the individual, who used it; and it is very doubtful that any 
great effort was made to arrive at a definitive interpretation 
of the idea that the New Testament is the religion of Protes¬ 
tants. But it is safe to say that Protestants meant that they 
were turning away from the authority of the Roman Catholic 
Church to the authority of the Bible, that is, the New Testa¬ 
ment. This is indicated by the often used formulation of 
their slogan: Where the Bible speaks we speak; and where 
the Bible is silent we are silent. With this they proposed to 
outflank all the old theology, sacramentalism and ecclesiasti- 
cism and get back on the original Christian ground. 

But is a return to the authority of the New Testament to 
make such a radical break with Catholicism as is sometimes 
supposed ? As a matter of fact it is not. Catholic doctrine 
itself rests on the authority of the New Testament. Of 
course, a considerable measure of theological imagination is 
required to find some of the doctrines in it, but in theory 
they are all derived from the New Testament. The case is 
parallel to that of modern Judaism, whose life is regulated 
by the Talmud, a literature which has been written since the 
time of Christ, but the Talmud is itself an outgrowth of 
the written law of Moses; so Judaism today is still based on 
the law of Moses. The American law is an illustration closer 


S. VERNON McCASLAND 


167 

home. Actually we are ruled by a great mass of laws con¬ 
tinually coming from national, state and local legislative 
bodies. At the same time, we often say that the Constitution 
of the United States is the supreme law of the land; and so 
it is. But the Constitution finds its application to us through 
the modern laws which in theory are based on it. 

So the Protestant break with Catholicism was not its as¬ 
sertion of the authority of the New Testament; not even 
of the sole authority of the New Testament. Catholics recog¬ 
nize this, too, if we allow them to define what they mean. 
The point of difference is that the Catholic use of the New 
Testament is based not on individual interpretation, but on 
the view of the church, which is made known only by 
authorized spokesmen through the centuries. The issue be¬ 
tween Protestants and Catholics is not the authority of the 
New Testament, but whether the individual is to be allowed 
to interpret it for himself. That the issue was the struggle 
for individual liberty is shown also by the fact that Protes¬ 
tantism, when it finally got what it wanted, did not generally 
reject all of the distinctively Catholic theology, sacramental- 
ism or ecclesiasticism. 

PERSONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 

The issue of the Reformation is perfectly clear. While it 
called for a return to the New Testament, that was not the 
main point. It was really a return to the individual person, 
a rediscovery of personal freedom. But this is not to answer 
our first question. It does not tell us what Protestants meant 
when they called the New Testament their religion. Did 
they introduce a new doctrine of Scripture which differed 
from that already held by Catholics ? If so, in what respect ? 


168 THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Did they mean that the New Testament was inspired by the 
Holy Spirit so that every word is infallible ? That it is in- 
errant ? If so, did they mean the Latin translation, the only 
one which they had, or the Greek, of which they knew very 
little, or one of the vernacular translations which soon ap¬ 
peared, such as the German or English? Did they mean 
that the New Testament is a complete divine revelation, that 
no other will be given since no other is necessary? Is it a 
blueprint of the church with instructions for all organiza¬ 
tions, worship and theology ? Are these instructions so clear 
that a simple reading of them by individuals will result in 
the outward unity of faith and organization which was 
formerly achieved by the church partly through resort to the 
sword ? Or is the word of God not in the specific ideas and 
organizations which reflect transitory adjustments to the 
needs of the time, but in the all-pervading sense of early 
Christians that they had discovered a way to live in fellow¬ 
ship with God ? It would be going too far to say that Protes¬ 
tants held any of these ideas to the exclusion of others. There 
was probably no general clarity among them on the subject, 
but in one way or another it was believed that the New Testa¬ 
ment would set the individual believer on the road to God. 

ORIGIN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

The repudiation of the authority of the church was the 
signal for the beginning of New Testament scholarship. 
The light which had been mediated by the church now had 
to come directly from the New Testament, or by means of it. 
The tremendous drive of this new movement has caused 
more study to be done on the New Testament than on any 
other book in the world and it is better known today than any 


S. VERNON McCASLAND 169 

other work of antiquity. This is an achievement of Protes¬ 
tantism. First of all is the question of the correct original 
text. There are several thousand complete or fragmentary 
manuscripts; new ones are still coming to light; they are in 
many languages, for the original Greek was soon widely 
translated. Scholars have now undoubtedly obtained a very 
reliable text, generally speaking, but the fact remains that 
the most valuable Greek manuscripts are not older than the 
fourth century, while only a few small fragments date back 
to the third or possibly the second century. This means that 
about three centuries elapsed between the autographs and 
the manuscripts upon which we rely. Scholars have had to 
reject a good many passages, like the ending of Mark, shown 
by the textual evidence to be additions. At best the text is 
only relatively certain. It is not absolute. 

The question of authorship has been an interesting prob¬ 
lem. In the early church itself there was little concern about 
who wrote the books, especially the Gospels. They were 
published anonymously, like all other historical books of the 
Bible without exception. It remained for later ages to find 
authors for them when an effort was being made to give 
them greater authority. We have a pretty good idea who 
wrote Mark and Luke — from early church tradition, but not 
from the books themselves. The only books whose author¬ 
ship is unquestioned by good scholarship are eight of Paul’s 
letters, though possibly ten may be allowed. That leaves four 
letters attributed to Paul by most of the leaders of the Refor¬ 
mation which are really pseudepigraphs. All the books of 
the New Testament except these few letters of Paul are either 
anonymous or pseudonymous. As they appear in the King 
James Version they are attributed definitely to apostolic 


170 THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

authors, thus making them pseudonymous, but at least the 
Gospels and Acts were anonymous originally. No concern 
was felt about apostolic authorship until the church began to 
make inspired Scripture out of its literature. 

The letters of Paul are the oldest books in the New Testa¬ 
ment. Paul began to write them about a.d. 50, and the last 
ones were written not long before a.d. 65. He did not think 
of himself as writing Scripture which would be incorporated 
in a Bible, but wrote to churches or friends dealing with 
emergencies that arose in his absence, fully expecting that the 
end of the world was at hand. His letters were written 
hurriedly and freely and so reveal the spontaneous character 
of his own thought. They were treasured by the churches, 
but not as Scripture, for some of his letters were not even 
preserved, which would be unthinkable if they had been 
looked upon as Scripture. 

Mark, which is the oldest of the Gospels, was written about 
a.d. 70, some thirty years after the death of Jesus. Matthew 
and Luke were written still later, for they are both based 
upon Mark as a source. Both have other written sources too, 
but they are essentially revisions of Mark, and their authors 
undoubtedly expected that Mark would be discarded. John 
is a still later and freer revision of the Gospel tradition. We 
have four versions of the story of Jesus in our Gospels, not 
to mention many others reflecting still unidentified sources 
which the Gospel writers clearly used. 

But what about those thirty years before the Gospels be¬ 
gan to appear? It is obvious that during those years the 
tradition about Jesus was transmitted mainly in the mem¬ 
ories of the disciples. This is the period of oral tradition. 
The disciples who had been with Jesus in person would tell 


S. VERNON McCASLAND 


171 

what they could remember of him. There were certain 
definite activities in the church which required interpretation 
from sayings of Jesus and stories about him. Examples are 
missionary preaching, teaching new converts, baptism, the 
Lord’s Supper, healing the sick; and others appeared as the 
organization of the church began to take form. These in¬ 
terests caused the traditions about Jesus to be gathered in 
blocks related to these topics; and so they came into Mark, 
the earliest Gospel in a fairly definite form. This means that 
while Mark edited, he is not to be thought of as creating 
either the form or the content of his Gospel outright. His 
book, like the other Gospels, properly remained anonymous, 
for it was a product of church tradition. 

AUTHORITY IN THE EARLY CHURCH 

By showing that Matthew and Luke have used Mark as a 
source, we demonstrate beyond question that the Gospels 
were not regarded as inspired Scripture by* their authors. 
The revisers freely correct Mark’s Greek style, change his 
statements of fact, reconstruct his order of events; they do 
precisely what any critical writer would do with a document 
which he uses as a source. But this could never have been 
done if the books themselves had been regarded as authori¬ 
tative at the time. The last of the Gospels was written close 
to the end of the first century, so it is evident that whatever 
authority there was in early Christianity was not lodged in a 
book of Christian Scripture. 

What then was the nature of the early Christian authority ? 
The answer is that it was pneumatic or prophetic. The 
leaders and many of the laymen of the early church be¬ 
lieved that they were inspired by the Holy Spirit and were 


172 THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

so accepted by the church generally. This inspiration ap¬ 
plied to both men and women. They were people who be¬ 
lieved that God spoke to them and through them directly. 
They felt no need of a Christian Scripture. Why should 
one who speaks by inspiration need a book to learn what to 
say? This is true of John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, Peter, 
Stephen and any other leader of whom we have a record. 
It was true also of a large number of laymen in Paul’s 
churches. 

This new birth of prophecy is the dominant note of early 
Christianity. It was a decisive factor in the origin of the new 
religion. Prophecy is no new thing in religion, but in the 
Judaism of the time it was generally felt in official circles 
that prophecy had ceased. This resulted in an extreme 
emphasis on the written Law, and no rabbi of the time dared 
to express views which were not based on it. Everything 
went back to the law of Moses, and the priests in the temple 
and the rabbis in the synagogues had constructed an elab¬ 
orate sacramentalism and ceremonialism to control the life 
of the people, which was remarkably parallel to the Catholi¬ 
cism against which the Protestants rebelled. Christianity be¬ 
gan in effect as a Jewish Protestantism. It was a rebellion 
of common men against an elaborate religious machinery 
which appeared to have lost the heart of religion. It was an 
attempt to get back to the realities. But most of all it was a 
rebellion against a top-heavy officialdom and an assertion of 
the right of the common man to approach God unhindered. 

The Jewish officials were furious at Jesus because he did 
things without authority; and Paul encountered the same 
disregard for authority even among Jewish Christians. They 
dared to teach without official sanction and did not hesitate 
to set aside or reinterpret specific statements of the law of 


S. VERNON McCASLAND 


i73 

Moses. But this was exactly the point. They felt authorized 
to teach by their own immediate access to God. Paul him¬ 
self however may illustrate the point most clearly for mod¬ 
ern readers. What authority did he have to follow his great 
missionary work? Had he ever known Jesus personally? 
No. Did he learn about him from earlier disciples? Un¬ 
doubtedly he learned the story of his death and resurrection 
from contact with the disciples before his conversion, but 
there is no evidence of more. Did he have a Gospel in which 
he could read about Jesus ? Certainly not. Then where did 
he get his message ? He quotes no sayings of Jesus. All his 
own ideas of religion come, as he interprets his mental 
processes, by inspiration. 

A CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURE 

But this religious freedom of the individual in the church 
was not to continue. Inspiration took too many directions. 
Sects began to arise on every hand. Certain churches located 
in strategic centers, such as Rome, assumed the right of 
domination. In places the prophetic spirit began to wane. 
The first evidence of this was the writing of the Gospels 
themselves. Churches felt the need of books to go by. 
Teachers of the second generation did not stand as high as 
those of the first. Around the turn of the century a collec¬ 
tion of Paul’s letters appeared. Before long the four Gospels 
were put together. By the middle of the second century 
references to them as Scripture begin to appear. The second 
epistle of Peter, which was written about that time, refers to 
Paul’s letters as Scripture. By the end of the second century 
most of the New Testament books had been recognized, but 
the process went on well into the fourth. 

The formation of an inspired Christian Scripture was just 


174 THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

one phase of the origin of the Catholic Church; others were 
the growth of a creed and the development of an ecclesias¬ 
tical organization with its sacramental system. This struc¬ 
ture was mostly complete by a.d. 200. With its overwhelm¬ 
ing authority sectarianism was effectively crushed and the 
freedom of the individual which characterized Christianity 
at its beginning disappeared. 

The only Scripture which the church had during the first 
century of its life was the Old Testament which it borrowed 
from Judaism. The first Christians were Jews and they did 
not think of themselves as a new religion but as a continua¬ 
tion of true Judaism. Thus the Jewish scriptures were 
brought bodily into the church. With one exception, that 
of II Peter, wherever Scripture is referred to in the New 
Testament the Old Testament is meant. It is noteworthy 
also that the New Testament books, with the single exception 
of Revelation, do not claim to be inspired Scripture; and 
Revelation, which claims to be Scripture, was one of the very 
last to be recognized as such by the church. While the Old 
Testament was Scripture in the early church, the leaders did 
not hesitate to set forth their own original interpretations 
of it and then to supplement it freely with revelations of their 
own. 

Thus it is clear that whatever authority the New Testa¬ 
ment had as inspired Scripture for the reformers, or has to¬ 
day, was not claimed by it and did not belong to it in the 
early church, but was the creation of the later church to crush 
the sects. As authoritative inspired Scripture, the New Testa¬ 
ment is a product of Catholicism created to unify the church. 


S. VERNON McCASLAND 


i75 


THEN AND NOW 

The real Protestant principle was not a return to the New 
Testament, but a return to the individual man. It is this re¬ 
discovery of the autonomy of persons in religion which 
has characterized Protestantism. Here Protestantism stood 
squarely on ground occupied by early Christianity — the ab¬ 
solute freedom and autonomy of individual Christian faith. 
This identity of the Protestant discovery with that of early 
Christianity has often been overlooked because of differences 
in vocabulary. They spoke of “ inspiration,” we call it “ rea¬ 
son but we are dealing in both cases with the same proc¬ 
esses of man’s rational nature, much of which is obscure. 
The only essential difference is that today we have possibili¬ 
ties of experimentation and a great collection of scientific 
data not available then. 

Faith then or now is not blind submission to the authority 
of any person, book or ecclesiastical body, but a conviction 
reached on the basis of an intelligent use of all the rational 
evidence at one’s command. For the individual to take any 
other attitude is to throw away the liberty which has come 
to him after ages of slavery and to enter again into bondage, 
to repudiate the achievement of early Christianity and the 
rediscovery of Protestantism. 

The New Testament is not to be regarded as a body of 
truth to be accepted or rejected regardless of its rational na¬ 
ture. Modern Christians may find much or all of it true, 
but whatever of truth there is in it is true not because it is in 
the New Testament, but because it agrees with rational cri¬ 
teria of truth. The ideas of the New Testament, like the uni¬ 
versal, interracial, international and spiritual qualities of re- 


i76 THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

ligion, will find wide assent; and the literature which gives 
them expression will remain the great religious classic. But 
the real value of the New Testament today will be discovered 
not by men who love domination and servitude, but by those 
who are in quest of freedom. 


XVI 


THE CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY 

ORVIS F. JORDAN 

HE ORGANIZATION of communities all over Amer- 



ica received great impetus from the experiences of 
the World War. The Red Cross and other war charities, 
the Liberty Loan campaigns and other drives brought into 
being community organizations. The conservation of coal 
forced congregations to worship together and later to con¬ 
solidate. It was then that the study of community organiza¬ 
tion became a university discipline and that Lindeman, 
Steiner and others produced books upon the subject of com¬ 
munity organization. 

With the end of the World War came a period when many 
of the war organizations ceased to be, but the village and 
town that had one experience of doing things together 
usually did not forget. 

What is a community ? One dictionary gives the term the 
meaning of a political unit, such as village, town, city or 
state. A secondary meaning is a sharing or participation. 
Sanderson, a rural sociologist, would make it “ the smallest 
geographical unit of organized association of the chief hu¬ 
man activities.” The ecumenical movement seems to put 
into the term an application involving world-wide interests. 


178 THE CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY 

For the purposes of this paper we shall regard the community 
as an organized unit of society usually comprising a village, 
town or city neighborhood. These are communities only 
when they do things together. When the cooperation is 
of individual with individual, the unit is only a neighbor¬ 
hood ; when the neighborhood develops a sense of unity and 
the techniques of common employments, then we really have 
a community. 

Not every community is on the road toward a better coordi¬ 
nation and efficiency. Many communities are quite evidently 
undergoing a process of decay. The will toward common 
enterprise becomes flabby or weak. Divisive forces make 
factions and cliques. The hatred between these divisions is 
like a cancer eating at the vitals of the community. 

This community disorganization sometimes results from 
the factionalism of politics. Small political units swing from 
one side to another of a political dispute. For the sake of 
this factionalism people become bad neighbors and refuse 
to work with each other for any good enterprise. 

Sometimes it is a denominational church system that does 
this thing to a community. The spirit that divides two or 
three Protestant churches from each other in a village is 
often more bitter than that which separates them from the 
local Catholic church and undoubtedly more bitter than their 
feeling toward the unchurched of the community. There is 
little opportunity for any church to grow except at the ex¬ 
pense of another. In many American communities, sectar¬ 
ianism is doing more to disorganize the community than is 
politics. 

It is not always politics or religion that fosters ill feeling. 
After the war there was for a while a rivalry between the local 


ORVIS F. JORDAN 179 

Red Cross units and the local charity organization. It was in 
many places ended by the withdrawal of the Red Cross. 

Even though they may not suffer greatly from the dis¬ 
organizing influences, communities are often of haphazard 
growth. One interest of community life grows to dispropor¬ 
tionate size because of effective leadership while other in¬ 
terests lag or are not cultivated at all. Few communities 
have been studied by social experts to determine the services 
that should be performed in the common life and how they 
may be best performed. Of course there is much laissez faire 
in small communities. As a defense against making contri¬ 
butions of money and work, people argue that the com¬ 
munity does very well without some given activity. 

Over against the disorganized community or the partly or¬ 
ganized community one may place the community carefully 
studied and faithfully developed. The study of the commu¬ 
nity has often been made by local forces. The churches, the 
clubs and all uplift organizations have joined in a community 
council. One such local council I knew to do effective work 
for a number of years. It developed a community chest and 
asked the city council to end sporadic drives for individual 
charities. It was brought to an end by a political boss who 
found it in the way of his ambitions. He sowed the seed of 
division and thus succeeded in shattering the council. 

What are the common interests of a community ? One of 
the earliest to develop is that of education. Many of us have 
had a grandfather who built upon his land in pioneer days 
the first log schoolhouse. Long ago America developed the 
public school and placed much of the administration in the 
hands of local officials. The results have on the whole been 
very satisfactory. People sometimes send their children to 


i8o THE CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY 

parochial schools under the threat of ecclesiastical punish¬ 
ment, but the reputation of the public school for educational 
efficiency is high as compared with that of most parochial and 
private schools. 

To secure friendly cooperation of the parents most commu¬ 
nities now have a parent-teacher association. There is often 
need of a voice that will loosen the purse strings of the com¬ 
munity to secure more adequate equipment. Here a church 
of community vision has been effective. 

The education of the adults of a community is carried on by 
clubs of various kinds. Women’s clubs have a high rating 
for this task. Luncheon clubs too often do their best work in 
the post-prandial mood. With all their defects, the churches 
are without doubt the most effective means of carrying on 
with adult education. Adult Sunday school classes in these 
latter days spend more time on live modern questions than on 
doctrinal discussions. The forum method is common. The 
church has various other agencies for adult education includ¬ 
ing many excellent programs for youth. The pulpit of a 
properly trained minister is also an educational force in the 
community much appreciated by the people. This trained 
man often speaks on other platforms than his own on topics 
of public interest. 

Very early in community life the recreational motive se¬ 
cures recognition. One reads of the life of Abraham Lincoln 
at Salem and finds him a hero in many wrestling bouts. We 
know now that play is one of the great necessary human in¬ 
terests. The lack of it results in nervous breakdowns and 
various abnormalities. Some of our ancestors took the view 
of an exaggerated Puritanism, and regarded play as a waste 
of time, an evil. 


ORVIS F. JORDAN 181 

The churches of a generation ago were chiefly negative in 
their influence on the play life of the community. They had 
a list of recreations that were of the devil. This was a list 
inherited from the days of Cromwell. It was adhered to 
without regard to any empirical study of the effect of various 
amusements. A church in northwestern Illinois one Sunday 
morning excommunicated a score of young people who had 
attended a dance the night before. 

One may safely say that the recreation which is planned and 
directed by the community is more apt to be wholesome than 
the kind provided by commercial agencies. The latter are 
actuated by the profit motive, the former by a sense of com¬ 
munity good. 

It is in play that churches find it easiest to cooperate. I 
found in an Illinois village some years ago a recreation hall 
used by both Catholics and Protestants, and managed by 
them in entire good will. 

The relief of those in distress early becomes a community 
interest. Private almsgiving was long cultivated by the 
Christian church, and so eminent a Christian as Count Tolstoi 
went on his daily walk with a pocket full of small coins for 
beggars. But the empirical mind of this new age follows the 
panhandler who asks for a cup of coffee down the street to 
the neighborhood saloon or the local dope dispensary. Alms¬ 
giving without investigation is the lazy way. But most of us 
cannot do the investigating. Scientific relief means a careful 
study of cases. Sometimes bread and clothing are given and 
sometimes just good advice. 

In many communities the churches tend to complicate the 
matter of charity with their sporadic raids on the problem 
of poverty. They duplicate relief for professionals who know 


182 THE CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY 

how to make a good appeal. In large cities the more needy 
neighborhoods are sometimes connected with the privileged 
communities by a city organization of the denomination. In 
smaller communities church charity may be just a bungling 
waste of money that tends to perpetuate mendicancy. 

Health has come to be recognized as a community interest, 
and many larger communities have salaried health officers 
who fight contagion and otherwise work for the health of 
the communities. These health officers may go far enough 
to study the defectives in the school population. In some 
communities in America a physician is maintained by a co¬ 
operative when he would starve to death in private practice. 
Such a person may get a rather generous subsidy from the 
township as a health officer. 

The lack in most American communities is health educa¬ 
tion. The death rate of infants and mothers is a standing 
disgrace in America. The collapse of young business men, 
now so prevalent, could be curtailed by annual medical ex¬ 
aminations. The socialization of medicine has resulted in an 
ugly quarrel that has brought the American Medical Associa¬ 
tion before the Supreme Court of the United States. The 
coercion of physicians with the threat of the law is not the 
answer to our problem of medicine for the underprivileged. 

In the field of public health the churches do nothing or be¬ 
come a negative influence. The faith healing cults, now 
rather numerous, have chalked up against them the death of 
many children who died for the lack of medical aid. They 
may be credited with the cure of some functional disorders. 
Just emerging on the horizon is the intelligent minister who 
may help the physician in incipient mental abnormality. 

Government is a community interest of great importance. 



ORVIS F. JORDAN 183 

Once government was chiefly concerned with restraining 
evildoers. Gradually its service was extended to public edu¬ 
cation, the building of roads, the organization of fire depart¬ 
ments and many other services. Bad government in a de¬ 
mocracy is more often found in metropolitan cities than in 
villages, but it may be found in either place. Education for 
life in a democracy is not now given adequately anywhere. 
The public school sometimes has a course in civics. The 
local church engages in an occasional campaign of reform, all 
too often motivated by the desire for publicity on the part of 
some minister-demagogue. 

The American doctrine of the separation of church and 
state is often misunderstood both by politicians and by church 
leaders. It does involve an entire freedom from control of 
one by the other, but certainly it does not involve either in¬ 
difference or hostility. Good community life is not divided 
into areas hostile to each other. The same man must at vari¬ 
ous times give friendly interest and cooperation to all the 
great concerns of the community. Democracy is still on trial 
in the world and has already been rejected by many. Its final 
success will depend upon what happens in the local com¬ 
munity. In the shaping of its final destiny, the church will 
have a part either good or evil. 

Without doubt there are communities that regard industry 
as a common problem. The chief industry of Oberammer- 
gau is its Passion Play. In many communities the chamber 
of commerce or the Kiwanis Club gives thought to the in¬ 
auguration of new forms of industry that would take up the 
slack of employment. The question is one that can better 
be solved locally than nationally for it must take account of 
local assets both of talent and of material resources. Many 


THE CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY 


184 

communities might wake up to find that the diamond that 
had been sought out in the wide world was in its own back 
yard. 

Now just what is the function of the church in the com¬ 
munity P Many churches have a keen sense of loyalty to an 
outside social entity called the denomination. A certain de¬ 
nominational official urges the congregation to “ take ” Mid¬ 
dletown. This word “ take ” is a military word. There is 
hope of a conquest and of a surrender. This point of view 
must be abandoned before a church can render the proper 
service to a community. The challenge is not to “ take ” 
Middletown, but to serve it. How we can best serve and best 
agree is the real quest. 

The protest against this denominational viewpoint has re¬ 
sulted in a swing to the opposite pole. Dr. John Haynes 
Holmes identifies the church and the community. They are 
one. This view ignores the obvious fact that in the ordinary 
American community half of the people do not want to be 
counted in the church. To disregard their will in this mat¬ 
ter only confuses us. And more than half of the country’s 
population are no effective part of the church for there are 
many purely nominal church members in America. 

What is the true relation of the church to the community ? 
The church is that part of the community which is prophet- 
minded. It feels itself burdened with a message and a task. 
It builds no walls against the rest of the community. On the 
contrary, it seeks to persuade the unpersuaded to accept a 
vision and a task. The vision is that of a life lived in the 
spirit of Jesus and the task is the setting up of the Kingdom of 
God. 

The prophet-minded church will often discern the menace 


ORVIS F. JORDAN 185 

of evil before the non-religious section of the community per¬ 
ceives it. If it is a truly prophetic church, it will never despair 
in the presence of evil. It will insist ever that the spirit of the 
living God leads on to victory for the better life. 

With reference to the community, the church has done a 
most valuable job in pioneering. The hospital for the sick 
was pioneered by the church in the long ago. Modern char¬ 
ity was born out of church charity. Education was once 
carried on by the church exclusively. When a life interest 
becomes more fully developed it often requires a specializa¬ 
tion that the church cannot give to it. Those who reproach 
the church for a lack of social achievement should read the 
history of social enterprises. Nor has this social pioneering 
come to an end. A book could easily be filled with an ac¬ 
count of the current efforts of churches in the field of social 
pioneering. 

In many smaller communities the church must supply the 
social engineering for a more mature social movement. The 
village minister is paid to “ preach the gospel,” but if he is to 
utilize to the full his ministry he must become a “ social 
engineer,” to use a phrase of Professor Earp’s. He may be 
the only man in the community who has had an education 
that included sociology. If his counsels are made after ade¬ 
quate study and are illumined by the best of our modern 
scientific discoveries, he will be in constant demand. Even 
the anti-church element of a village may come to like him 
and support him in his efforts. His function is that of com¬ 
munity counselor and never that of community boss. He 
must wait sometimes to see the fruition of his labors, but 
with patience he may work a mighty revolution in the com¬ 
munity life. 


186 


THE CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY 


The church must also recognize many non-church organi¬ 
zations as friendly allies. There are still some churches that 
fight lodges as being centers of darkness. Secrecy is supposed 
to imply guilt. All that the lodge neophyte learns might as 
well be proclaimed from the housetop. The lodge ritual is 
a mixture of biblical story, moral principle, social program, 
relief and just ordinary recreation. The church that drives 
a lodge into enmity and suspicion is very unwise. 

It is true that the leaders of most community organizations 
are recruited from the church. This should be thought of 
by the church as a compliment. The church builds human 
sympathy, trains in the technique of leadership and provides 
the motivation for much of our community work. Through 
this leadership the church might “ run ” the community or¬ 
ganizations. It is very unwise to do so, for thus it will arouse 
jealousies and make the unchurched element of the commu¬ 
nity unwilling to cooperate. The true attitude of the church 
toward all other forms of community organization is that of 
a friendly ally. Such a role the community organizations 
are sure to appreciate and commend. 

As has already been hinted, the church has the unique func¬ 
tion of keeping alive the religious spirit out of which all so¬ 
cial life must in the end proceed. It is the church that talks 
of the universal brotherhood of man, of the infinite value of 
a single human life, of the organization of life into the King¬ 
dom of God. It is the church that can be depended upon 
most surely to fight racialism, war, class prejudice and civil 
strife. Inside most American communities are facts that im¬ 
ply division. It is the business of the church with its idealism 
to furnish the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. 

As already implied, the undue multiplication of churches 


ORVIS F. JORDAN 187 

in a community tends to stymie the efforts of religious people 
in community service. In Ohio the council of churches has 
declared repeatedly that there should not be in an Ohio 
village more than one church to a thousand people. Yet one 
may find hundreds of villages with three or four times that 
many churches. Such churches starve their ministers in body 
and soul and disorganize their communities through the bit¬ 
terness of their competition. 

The community church movement of the past two decades 
has been an effort to correct this situation. A church does 
not need to cease its traditional denominational cooperation 
to become a community church. It has only to be a church 
that makes all Christians in the community at home in its 
membership and to organize this congregation in behalf 
of community good. There are many such community 
churches in America. Some have the substance as well as 
the name. Others, unfortunately, trade upon the commu¬ 
nity name to do a piece of proselyting. In every community 
the people soon know whether a so-called community church 
is the real thing or not. 

In other communities there are federated churches. At 
Wauconda, Illinois, a Methodist and a Baptist church fed¬ 
erated. Methodist and Baptist ministers are employed alter¬ 
nately. The two buildings were moved upon one lot and 
tied together by a beautiful tower. Denominational leaders 
favor this type rather than the independent type. In other 
communities the ground has been entirely cleared of the de¬ 
nominational debris and a new independent church formed. 
There are hundreds of these throughout America. 

For any of these community or federated churches a special 
training and outlook are required. No piece of machinery 


i88 


THE CHURCH AND THE COMMUNITY 


works by itself but only at the bidding of its master. Every 
machine must be lubricated and serviced. So it is with the 
church machine that is called the community church. In the 
hands of an ignorant or intolerant minister its end is futility. 
In the hands of a man of vision it may render a great service. 

Dr. Holt declares that democracy is most workable in small 
communities. The building of community spirit and com¬ 
munity organization in villages and in sections of great cities 
is a task that will undergird democracy as well as conserve 
many other human interests. The church may well con¬ 
sider its duty to become a leader in community development. 
My own conviction is that we will get on much faster in 
ushering in the Kingdom of God by working in shirt sleeves 
in the organizations of our villages than by putting on stuffed 
shirts and voting for high-sounding resolutions in church 
conventions. 


XVII 


“ LIVING ” CITY CHURCHES 
SAMUEL C. KINCHELOE 
FEW YEARS AGO writers in the field of religion were 



1 ^ talking of “ successful ” churches in city and country. 
Then the term “ adapted city church ” came along. A recent 
writer has spoken of the “ effective city church.” The phrase 
“ effective city church ” does not imply great size or increase 
in size or average size, popularity of minister or services with 
large attendance, large finances, large staff or beauty of build¬ 
ing, but puts the emphasis upon the role of the church and its 
work in great causes, in building its community and in the 
orientation and help which it gives to persons. The users of 
these various phrases were all seeking to describe the same 
thing, namely, the vital or living church. 

In this brief paper the effort is not to give a statistical pic¬ 
ture of the average city church but to state what, from the 
writer’s point of view, are the characteristics of one. There 
are no technical or statistical devices by which one may tell 
whether or not a church is doing what it should do as a 
church. They may help, however, by giving indices by 
which judgments may be formed. The living city church 
must be thought of in the light of what city churches must do 
to live and also in the light of the kind of life they maintain 
while they live. Religious institutions like other institutions 
may succeed in some phases of their work but not in others. 


190 


LIVING” CITY CHURCHES 


Basically we must say that the vitality of a church consists 
in its worth as a social institution. It is not a simple task to 
measure “ the enrichment and fulfillment ” of human life 
which one institution brings. In one sense this entire article 
is based on the hypothesis that there are unusual opportuni¬ 
ties for churches in cities. 

An extensive debate could be carried on over the way in 
which the various factors making for successful city churches 
should be ranked. As a matter of fact, to think of them in 
terms of a chronological order or even a logical order quite 
misleads the student in this field. While the writer chooses 
an order in which to discuss these various characteristics, 
their interrelationship must be ever before us. 

The first thing necessary to a vital church is that the insti¬ 
tution spoken of as a church be a church — that is, that it have 
those purposes and activities of life which relate it to and 
identify it with the genius and nature of churches. There 
may be many institutions known as churches which, accord¬ 
ing to basic criteria, could not be called vital churches because 
they have only the form, not the spirit, of the type of institu¬ 
tion which they are supposed to be. 

The primary purposes of a church may be described 
roughly under three categories: first, to champion great 
causes, causes which are so great that they are conceived to be 
related to God himself; second, to build the good local com¬ 
munity; and third, to give meaning and purpose to personal 
living. 

The first of these special purposes required of a vital city 
church is the great cause, which may be local, national or 
international in scope. While the great cause is related to 
geography it is not limited to parish boundaries. For the 


SAMUEL C. KINCHELOE 


I9 1 

Christian church the world is its parish where it must main¬ 
tain those principles which are considered worthy of supreme 
devotion. The great causes of the church, therefore, become 
symbolic of the universal interest of the church in mankind, 
in Christian missions and in world views. There is a practi¬ 
cal need for this emphasis upon the great cause in the fact 
that social conditions such as unemployment, delinquency, 
race conflict and war are let down like a great fog over com¬ 
munities and the local community in itself is helpless to deal 
with them. As the preacher in a local church makes pro¬ 
nouncements on great issues, his message takes on national 
and even world significance, thus making important the local 
institution. When Protestant churches lose their ideologies 
and the accompanying causes, they cease to be significant as 
Protestant churches. 

The second of the church’s essential purposes is to build 
the kind of community in which an institution with the 
ideals of the church can live and in which the members of 
the church can maintain their loyalty to these principles. The 
third purpose is to give orientation to the new life coming into 
the community and into the church. This orientation might 
be described by the scriptural and theological term, “ salva¬ 
tion.” From a sociological point of view a person is saved 
when he conceives that he has a purpose, a goal and a destiny 
in life. For all those who hold that they are Christians there 
is the general assumption that their purposes in life are de¬ 
fined by and related to Jesus Christ and the great tradition 
which has come down from Hebrew religion through him 
and has been developed through centuries of Christian life 
and work. These three purposes a church must have if it is 
to be a church. 


192 


LIVING ” CITY CHURCHES 


The second characteristic of the successful city church 
might be said to be an adequate constituency. If we think 
of a church of a particular type, such as the early American 
Protestant group or the group of continental European ori¬ 
gin or the Roman Catholic churches or the Jewish syna¬ 
gogues, we know very well that under certain circumstances 
any particular type will have difficulty if it is located in a 
constituency which is very largely that of some other type. 

It so happens that in many of the larger cities of the north 
many churches of British-American origin find themselves 
stranded or located in a population which has not been condi¬ 
tioned to their particular type of religious faith and practice. 
Some downtown or inner city churches having almost all the 
characteristics a successful church should have may gradually 
decline and finally die because they are so far removed from 
a possible constituency. This is one reason why the various 
denominations are anxious to have church comity operate 
among themselves. They are anxious for its protection be¬ 
cause they are conscious that they must have a constituency. 
Wherever comity has failed to work and there is overcompe¬ 
tition on the part of churches, difficulty is found. 

The location of a church in the city is crucial. There are, 
to be sure, significant churches tucked away in obscure cor¬ 
ners. Sometimes lots located in the center of a block have 
been given by real-estate men. The donors may have to 
answer for this in the day of the judgment of real-estate men, 
but they should be forgiven since neither they nor the reli¬ 
gious leaders who helped to guide them saw the great need 
for visibility in the crowded urban areas. The publicity value 
of a good location is great. Since the church is an evangeliz¬ 
ing institution and must compete for the time, interest and 


SAMUEL C. KINCHELOE 


193 

attention of people in crowded urban conditions, it is very 
necessary that a church be properly located with reference to 
the constituency which it hopes to attract. The writer can 
mention by name a number of city churches which have had 
hard going by reason of a poor location. 

One of the essentials of a living church is that there shall 
be added to it those who need salvation. A church may be 
said to be unfruitful or dying when it ceases to take in new 
members. The Christian religion, in contrast with certain 
other religions, has been an evangelizing and missionary re¬ 
ligion. Churches have sought to have those who are without 
the church come to a commitment of their faith in Jesus 
Christ. Any church which fails to take this position is out 
of line with historical Christianity and with the genius of 
those organizations which call themselves Christian churches. 

There are three principal ways for the increase of church 
membership: (1) migration of members of the denomination 
into the community; (2) increases from births within the 
group; (3) increases by conversion, either from among non- 
churched people or by proselytization from other faiths. 
This third type takes place best when a movement is new 
and prophetic. The quickest way for a church to grow in 
urban territory is to get into a favorable population flow; that 
is, one which has been conditioned in the religious faith and 
practice of the church which is seeking to grow. 

The successful city church is always seeking to do some¬ 
thing more than to get members, something more than 
merely survive. It is always asking itself what kind of mem¬ 
bers it is producing. There is, however, no alibi for a church 
whose members are gradually dying off and which wins no 
new ones in a population where non-members live. 


T 94 


LIVING ” CITY CHURCHES 


There are churches and communities in which people are 
so conditioned to their own particular forms of religion that 
there is a continuity from generation to generation. In 
large cities, the preservation of the continuity of church fel¬ 
lowships calls for effective leadership. The factors making 
for the dissolution of any group in the great city are so pow¬ 
erful that unless there is, at the center of the group, a strong, 
dynamic leader, the church melts away in the tides of urban 
life. There are ministers of churches in urban territory who, 
over a long ministry, with the aid of a relatively small num¬ 
ber of faithful lay leaders, have built a constituency, devel¬ 
oped a tradition and a momentum for life. There are many 
city churches which have been consigned to mediocrity and 
defeat because they have had a succession of preachers whose 
strength of leadership and length of stay were insufficient to 
pull together a significant group. 

The vital city church has an inclusiveness in religious doc¬ 
trine and practice and also in the social, cultural, educational 
and economic characteristics of its members. While there is 
a general segregation in urban territory according to religious 
background, nevertheless many urban communities have 
great heterogeneity of religious faith. One may safely say 
that there is not a city church of the early American Protes¬ 
tant type which does not have within its membership people 
from many different denominational backgrounds. Inclu¬ 
siveness is, therefore, a necessity for growth and survival in 
urban conditions. 

It is also a necessity from the Christian and human point 
of view. One might say that the city church has the attitudes 
and methods of a community church so far as concerns its 
willingness to accept into fellowship members of various re- 


SAMUEL C. KINCHELOE 


i 95 

ligious faiths. Its positive teachings represent an emphasis 
rather than a creed to which all must subscribe. 

In the city the barriers of social, cultural, economic and 
racial patterns stand always as a challenge to the basic Chris¬ 
tian positions such as were accepted in the World Conference 
on Life and Work in Oxford, 1937. This inclusiveness in 
Protestant groups means more than a willingness to worship 
in the same sanctuary, more than a formal extension of hospi¬ 
tality by a church staff and by the ushers of the church. It 
means a desire to build fellowship across lines which are fre¬ 
quently barriers. City churches accept a precarious practice 
when they accept the stratification of the larger communities 
in which they are situated. The vitality of churches which 
call themselves Christian has a supreme test at this particular 
point. 

Any church, but especially the city church, must be a place 
where free and creative discussion may take place. Dr. Ed¬ 
ward Scribner Ames has referred to his church as one which 
has worked out the principles, plans and attitudes by which 
serious discussions on controversial topics can take place with¬ 
out the disruption of intimate personal relationships. This 
ability to maintain intimate social relationships while discuss¬ 
ing great issues is thought by many to be the supreme test of 
the Christian in times of great stress and strain. These atti¬ 
tudes and plans for discussion of controversial topics are espe¬ 
cially crucial in the large city, where the problems of riches 
and poverty, of capital and labor, of race relations, of family 
conflict, are acute, and where the problems involved in inter¬ 
national issues are sharpened by war abroad. 

The living city church celebrates life. Dr. Von Ogden 
Vogt has defined religion as “ the celebration of life.” The 


LIVING” CITY CHURCHES 


196 

church points up the emotional intensities of life and gives 
value and interpretation to them. The church which has in 
it the spirit and practice of the celebration of the high points 
and the achievements in human life, either in the individual 
or in the group, has a way of commending itself to its people 
and of establishing itself in the interest and attention of its 
community. These celebrations may take place under the 
simplest circumstances. There may be a church dinner at 
which the oldest member is asked to stand and receive the 
greetings of his fellows. There are moments for the recog¬ 
nition of its younger members. It may be in the marriage 
ceremonies. It may be in the Christmas pageants wherein 
are celebrated the spirit of giving and of making good cheer. 
It may be in the beautiful music of Eastertime. One could 
scarcely call a church vital which failed to celebrate life. 

In the celebration of life and in all the functions of the 
church, beauty and art play an important role. Churches are 
now competing with organizations which expend great sums 
of money for the beautification of their programs. This 
often throws into contrast the barren, ill kept church edifice. 
The small group which makes a spiritual blessing out of pov¬ 
erty and out of the more primitive forms of life may continue 
as a small group to exert an influence far beyond the propor¬ 
tion of its numerical strength. There is pressure, however, 
for church groups to maintain themselves in beauty and dig¬ 
nity in the urban environment. This is especially true in 
those populations which out of an Old World background 
have been accustomed to elaborate rituals and beautiful 
church sanctuaries. 

The successful city church must have a rich emotional life. 
If church groups are dealing with the great issues of life, then 


SAMUEL C. KINCHELOE 


197 

we may expect a tone of natural earnestness to appear in ser¬ 
mons and in all other activities. The writer does not know 
of any city churches which succeed on the basis of a coldly 
intellectual or impersonal approach. Even the most intel¬ 
lectual sermons may be filled with urgency and a sense of 
deep concern. It is very well for a church to have many small 
discussion groups where emphasis is upon the working out 
of plans. When, however, the main worship service of a 
church becomes small, there is difficulty in maintaining the 
kind of emotional tone which draws people to this service. 
There cannot be warmth and enthusiasm because the group 
is small and the group remains small because there is no 
warmth and enthusiasm. The size of the group, the purify¬ 
ing and cleansing effect of great music, the utterance of a 
great word of interpretation and beautiful architecture assist 
in developing a moment in which minister and people come 
to be emotionally unified in a common act of worship. If 
the rapport thus established is carried over into a warm per¬ 
sonal friendliness extended to fellow members and strangers 
alike, a powerful element in the success of the church is 
created. 

The vital city church must have a special concern for fam¬ 
ily life. While activities for various age and sex groups are 
necessary, still there should be occasions when the family as 
a family meets at the church. Ministers today are giving 
special concern to counseling in marriage relationships and 
to counseling young adults. Certain seasonal activities where 
drama or pageantry is employed may give occasion for the 
whole family to attend. Some churches find great advantage 
in having a part of the main worship service devoted espe¬ 
cially to the children. Whatever the special content of the 


LIVING” CITY CHURCHES 


198 

program, it should be a chief concern to have the family 
united in its religious life. The prevalence of broken and 
fragmented family life and the extreme diversification of 
individual interests in the urban community put a premium 
upon the church which can develop in its program special 
ways and means of unifying family life. 

The topic of vocation comes to us today with new urgency 
and in a new setting in the urban environment. The very 
high rate of unemployment and the type of work which 
many people must do in the mechanized, standardized pro¬ 
duction of today challenge people in city churches with the 
need of a new outlook and new programs to deal with this 
important aspect of life. Yet in modern urban communities 
very few church members are able as individuals to do any¬ 
thing about the vocational life of their fellows. We are now 
at a time when many of the things that can be done must 
be done by legislative bodies. There is a new urgency and 
demand that local churches link themselves together in 
efforts to preserve the dignity of labor and to assure for the 
individual the possibility of bearing his share of the great 
burdens of our society. A sound economic order would seem 
to demand this. A thoroughly democratic society would 
certainly have a concern at this point. A Christian church 
cannot possibly escape its responsibility here and still main¬ 
tain that it is vital. 

While a great many churches know very well that recrea¬ 
tion is not the chief goal of life, still they are realizing that 
people are bound together by numerous forms of association 
and that for a church group to be able to have wholesome 
and creative recreational life together may be a means of 
strengthening human fellowship. By the creative use of 


SAMUEL C. KINCHELOE 


199 


leisure the personality gets a new sense of its own signifi¬ 
cance as a person while, at the same time, a fellowship is 
strengthened. A religious institution has a spirit and an 
atmosphere which make a particular activity different in its 
effect upon the person from what it is in a secular setting. 
These programs and plans for creative leisure need to apply 
to all ages and to both sexes in a church, through specialized 
activities and activities which all may share. 

The experimental, youthful and even romantic attitude 
stands the church in the urban community in good stead. 
This does not mean that the church can afford to be startling 
at the expense of dignity. Supplementing its major func¬ 
tions there are many special smaller adaptations which re¬ 
late the life and message of the church to people under very 
different circumstances. This special adaptation requires an 
experimental attitude which is both a quality of mind and a 
genius for seeing new relationships. It may reveal itself in 
the minister s message to his people, or in the special type 
of program which is found in the church. The church may 
maintain many of the regular practices and yet find ways 
by which the quality and the content of religion have special 
relationship to the conditions in which men find them¬ 
selves so that the city man may truly say, “ I have found a 
church that can speak to my condition.” 

A church can have enthusiasms when it conceives that 
it has something for which it should live. This romantic 
impulse is found in youth and also in churches. Scorn is 
often heaped upon both. The city is the very place where 
this quality of religion is especially needed just because the 
defeats of churches seem so numerous. But enthusiasm can¬ 
not be maintained, or pessimism avoided, without some ac- 


200 


LIVING ” CITY CHURCHES 


complishment of results. When churches grow thoroughly 
pessimistic regarding their own future, their fate is sealed. 

The vital church needs to have overhead relationships with 
a larger fellowship both of its own denomination and with 
those interdenominational organizations that plan and work 
for common causes and distribute commitments for work 
in the city. Being related in a common enterprise with other 
churches gives a sense of mission in the larger world and 
saves the local church from an ingrowing spirit directly con¬ 
trary to the genius of Christianity. Organizations within the 
local church itself, such as the young people’s societies, are 
given a higher sense of importance when affiliated with city¬ 
wide, state and national movements. 

We have seen how the vital church must live up to the 
genius of the church as a church, must have a constituency 
and a desirable location, must actively seek new members, 
achieve continuity through strong leadership, be inclusive in 
spirit and practice, emphasize the celebration of life and a 
balance of intellect and emotion in preaching and church 
work, give special attention to family life, bring vocation into 
the sanctuary, be concerned for the creative use of leisure 
time, adopt an experimental and youthful outlook toward 
its future and be closely related to a larger Christian enter¬ 
prise and fellowship. Sometimes a special combination of 
even a few of the above characteristics will yield a church 
successful in giving meaning to human lives, in building a 
better local community, and in providing leadership for 
causes so great as to demand complete loyalty and a sense 
that these causes are a concern of God himself. 


XVIII 


THE LOCAL CHURCH— 

AN EFFECTIVE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY 

IRVIN E. LUNGER 


Churches are free associations of individuals, endeavoring by every 
means to cultivate the highest forms of life that experience and im¬ 
agination may devise. ... In them persons band themselves together 
to instruct themselves, their children, and the community, in finding 
and following the most ideal manner of living. 


Edward Scribner Ames 1 



HRISTIANITY is essentially a social movement. Its 


origins were social and its progress through the cen¬ 
turies may be best understood as a social process. The men 
and women who shared its forward movement made up a 
continuing and self-renewing fellowship. However, then 
as now, they were participants at the same time in the variety 
of institutions and organizations of life which composed 
their social environment. Being both in and of the human 
situation, Christianity never ceased being a social process 
integral to the time and place through which it moved. Its 
churches stood uniquely within the continuity of its religious 
tradition and the complex interests and activities of an im¬ 
mediate human milieu. 

Local churches are associations “ of like-minded persons 
who are drawn together by common beliefs and attitudes 


201 


202 


THE LOCAL CHURCH 


toward life and by cherished values which they hope to see 
prevail in the personal and associated life of their fellow 
men.” 2 A church is but one community within a variety of 
communities although its unitive character makes it unique. 
It is made distinctive among social institutions by virtue of 
the quality of fellowship and the nature of the cause which 
it represents. 

Churches emerged, historically, as informal associations of 
men and women whose lives had been quickened and trans¬ 
formed by the personality and teachings of Jesus. These 
associations achieved the status of self-conscious and self- 
determining communities. Persons entered the early Chris¬ 
tian communities voluntarily, motivated by a desire for a 
sustained and sustaining fellowship in an all-important cause 
— the enrichment and salvation of life. Only as external 
forces played upon these rather loosely organized religious 
communities, and as increasing membership and a maturing 
world view affected their life, did they acquire more formal 
organization and more regularized procedures. Much the 
same social process obtained in the organization and growth 
of local churches in recent times. As a few individuals or 
families felt the need for a congenial and stimulating re¬ 
ligious fellowship, or as such a need was called into con¬ 
scious being by the vigorous voice of a missionizing preacher, 
there came into existence small, loosely organized religious 
associations which through years of social interaction became 
more formally established as churches. 

Although local churches, historically and currently, 
emerged from the social process, few of them have kept their 
fellowship open and freely accessible to all who might desire 
membership in them. Not infrequently a series of specific 


IRVIN E. LUNGER 


203 


requirements for membership, over and beyond the simple 
desire to participate in a religious organization of life, was 
introduced. These requirements tended to make member¬ 
ship selective and to transform the open fellowship of the 
religious community into an exclusive one. Since exclusive¬ 
ness leads to isolation from the immediate social process, 
local churches which have sought to make their membership 
selective, culturally or theologically, sacrificed the “ at-home- 
ness ” in the human situation so necessary to effective re¬ 
ligious living. To avoid the dangers of exclusiveness and to 
keep alive the vital interaction between the religious com¬ 
munity and its social environment, many churches have 
made a deliberate effort to keep the local church an inclusive 
association of all who desire to share its life. Such an em¬ 
phasis protects the church from isolation from that social 
situation in terms of which its effective life is defined. By 
remaining a rather loosely organized community among 
more rigid social institutions, the local church keeps its life 
moving within the broad stream of its culture and is able to 
provide a more vigorous and reasonable projection of its pur¬ 
pose through the larger social process. While immersion in 
the immediate human situation imposes certain limitations 
upon the religious community, a deliberate effort to provide 
a religiously motivated and motivating society within the 
social processes enables it to function in terms of the native 
idealisms and aspirations of the unfettered human spirit 
while challenging and purifying them by the long con¬ 
tinuity of past religious experience which it represents. 

The local church is a distinctive social community not be¬ 
cause of its exclusiveness or its traditional theological au¬ 
thorities but because of the unusual fellowship which it 


204 


THE LOCAL CHURCH 


offers to all who wish to “ belong ” and to share in a move¬ 
ment born of the shared quest for more meaningful and sus¬ 
taining life. As a continuing and self-renewing community, 
voluntarily established and perpetuated, the local church may 
participate effectively in determining the character and fu¬ 
ture of human experience. 

A RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY 

To describe the local church as a social unity functioning 
in and through an immediate social situation and in terms 
of a long tradition would not be to characterize it completely. 
The religious community is both the effect of the religious 
experience of past generations and a cause of present and 
future religious experience. It is a distinct social unity only 
because it is uniquely a religious community. 

The local church is not merely an institution with a re¬ 
ligion. Its social emergence and its religious development 
were not separate phases of its life. It represents a living 
integration of both social and religious forces. It would be 
false to posit a secular world over against a religious world 
because religion is a quality rather than a quantity of life 
and would be meaningless apart from its social implication. 
The local church is that community uniquely concerned with 
sustaining and stimulating religious life through and in all 
reaches of the social process. 

Although it is a vital function of the religious community 
to conserve and extend the values and attitudes of earlier re¬ 
ligious experience, the local church is not bound by ideas or 
practices inherent in the Christian tradition which have no 
relevancy to the present and future ranges of human experi¬ 
ence. The religious community has an obligation to the past 


IRVIN E. LUNGER 


205 

but it is less binding than its obligation to the present. Its 
real power and authority arise from its vital relation to the 
spiritual needs and aspirations of those men and women who 
either share its life or are influenced by it. Since it is a 
primary function of the religious community to express and 
implement “ the out-reaching, forward striving of the human 
spirit toward the freest and highest development ,” 3 the local 
church must exercise and defend its freedom to modify and 
extend its heritage. Edward Scribner Ames suggests: 

Every local congregation has the right and the duty to examine its 
methods and teachings in the light of man’s growing knowledge of 
himself and his world. It is obliged by the very urgency of the reli¬ 
gion that it cultivates to search and experiment for better forms of 
public services, for more effective methods of training its members, 
young and old, for more compelling and illuminating symbols in all 
the arts, and for more appealing and sustaining sources of comfort and 
courage in the great adventure of reasonable and idealistic living . 4 

Through their associated experience in the local church, 
men and women should be stimulated to see their desires 
and aspirations in a universal and ideal reference. In their 
quest for more satisfying beliefs and practices, they should 
develop “ techniques for mutual self-appraisal, for release 
from the past and the possibility of making new beginnings, 
for self-discipline, and for laying hold upon those spiritual 
resources that reside in and beyond the group.” 5 The sus¬ 
taining and stimulating experience of the church makes in¬ 
creasingly possible the shared achievement of life as it is 
loved and the clarification and utilization of those means by 
which life may be deepened and brought closer to its ideal¬ 
ized possibility. In that religious community where religion 
is interpreted as a quality of life generated and nurtured by 


20 6 


THE LOCAL CHURCH 


the growth of intelligence and love there will be found a 
fellowship and a cause capable of functioning in and through 
the social process in such manner as to further the human 
achievement of more meaningful and satisfying life. 

AN EFFECTIVE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY 

The recognition that the local church is a social community 
defined by its religious purpose does not carry any guarantee 
that it will function effectively in the human situation. The 
effective functioning of a local church is determined by the 
spirit of its organized life and by the quality of its program. 
The religious community must be so organized that it can 
effectively fulfill its high social and religious responsibility. 
Its program must be defined in such manner as to make 
available to its members and to the human situation in which 
it lives significant and transforming resources and powers 
of religious living. 

In its social organization the local church represents a 
complex of personal relationships and interacting groups. If 
it is to function as a creative and renewing social force in a 
particular period in the life of its culture, it must possess an 
adaptable and flexible inner structure. Otherwise it would 
rapidly acquire a rather rigid institutionalism which would 
stunt the religious life of its members and minimize its social 
influence. Since the actual organization of the local church 
is but a means to the end of religious living, its techniques 
and processes need to be living implementations of its 
primary and motivating purpose. In order to secure and 
further the experience of life which it symbolizes, the local 
church needs to be democratic in structure and experimental 
in attitude. The structure of the church needs at all times 


IRVIN E. LUNGER 


207 

to be subject to the purposes which motivate it and to the life 
of the social situation in which it has its being. 

The program of the effective religious community is de¬ 
termined by the necessity of sustaining and stimulating the 
religious life of its members and of interpreting and applying 
religion to those ranges of human experience which lie be¬ 
yond its immediate influence. In its relation to those who 
share its associated life, the local church reveals three em¬ 
phases: an inspirational or motivational emphasis, an educa¬ 
tive or instructive emphasis, and a friendly or social emphasis. 
Its program is designed to provide compelling motivation 
for courageous and confident living, to instruct in the reli¬ 
gious way of life, and to nurture and extend sustaining hu¬ 
man fellowship. 

Traditionally, the inspirational or motivational function 
of the religious community was dominant. The local church 
sought by every means to hold up to men a vision of an ideal 
way of life — a way which would save them from the lesser 
ideals and distorted conceptions of value and help them 
avoid the pitfalls of life into which spiritual blindness and 
moral weakness might hurl them. The inspirational func¬ 
tion of the church was and is its saving function. However, 
it is not upon miraculous or supernatural intervention that 
the religious community must rely but upon its own ca¬ 
pacity for discovering those qualities of life which possess 
transforming and quickening power. The local church 
represents an associated effort to discern the way of life which 
promises most complete and ideal realization. It becomes a 
fundamental responsibility of the church to relate the lives 
of its members and of those capable of being influenced by 
its program to ranges of experience, known through memory 


208 


THE LOCAL CHURCH 


or imagination, which give to life a deep sense of meaning 
and purpose and call forth transforming energies dedicated 
to the achievement of more ideal possibilities of experience. 

The educative or instructive function of the local church 
is primarily that of “ providing conditions and resources by 
which growing persons may achieve a religious quality in 
every phase of the experience by which they realize them¬ 
selves.” 6 The educative responsibility of the church is less 
that of transmitting past religious experience (although this 
has its place), more a furthering of the human adjustment 
to the natural world and to the social environment through 
the use of all available resources interpreted and adapted in 
the spirit and perspectives gained from the long Christian 
tradition. This phase of the program of the religious com¬ 
munity is given its urgency by the necessity of stimulating 
its members to more intelligent and creative expression of 
religion in life. 

Historically, the educative function of the church was de¬ 
fined largely in terms of the indoctrination of its members 
in the traditional theological beliefs of Christianity. How¬ 
ever, if the educative responsibility of the church is con¬ 
ceived as being that of providing its members with intelligent 
and spiritual insight into the true values and possibilities resi¬ 
dent in the human situation, the religious community must 
bring the fruits of science and the wisdom of the ages into 
such relation to their common life as may aid them in achiev¬ 
ing a meaningful and expanding religious experience. The 
local church may not boast of “ given ” truth as a unique 
possession of the religious community. The truths which it 
seeks to instill in the minds of its members are those sub¬ 
stantiated by human experience and imagination. They 


IRVIN E. LUNGER 


209 


have the authority of life itself. However, it does render a 
unique and invaluable service as it seeks to guide, by open 
discussion and scholarly investigation, a shared quest for 
truth with a view to relating all its findings to the religious 
control and extension of the common life. 

The third emphasis of the religious community within its 
own associated life is upon the sustaining and extending of 
that network of intimate human relationships which are at 
once the source of its life and the channels of its larger ef¬ 
fectiveness. The quality of life sustained by a religious com¬ 
munity is not unlike that of a human family. Although there 
is a biological unity in the family, its real coordination and 
strength are a result of the common activities and interests 
which dominate its life. In the religious community a simi¬ 
lar mutuality is created and enriched by vital and continuing 
fellowship in a cause of great felt importance. Although the 
human associations which made the local church a social 
reality are more varied than those of the family, yet there 
is a cohesion revealed through them by virtue of the unify¬ 
ing cause that may be closer than the bonds of the human 
family. The warm and meaningful friendships which un¬ 
dergird the religious community require continued nurture. 
Yet by providing opportunities for social expression and by 
consciously seeking to keep the life of each member an inte¬ 
gral part of the community of religious endeavor, the church 
may succeed in bringing into its common life a feeling of 
kinship and shared experience which will support and radi¬ 
ate a quality of life nowhere else obtainable in the social 
process. 

To be socially effective, the local church, in addition to its 
inspirational, educative and friendly function, must define 


210 


THE LOCAL CHURCH 


its program in terms of those wider areas of life which en¬ 
circle it in the human situation. The religious community 
must do for individuals and institutions native to its environ¬ 
ment much the same thing it seeks to do for men and women 
who share its own associated life. The local church may 
function effectively in the communities beyond its immedi¬ 
ate organization in two ways, namely, in an institutional 
manner as a distinct social organization deeply concerned 
with the quality of the common life about it, and in an in¬ 
dividualized manner through the men and women who are 
members both of the religious community and of the larger 
complex of social relations at the same time. 

The local church may and should bring its influence as a 
religious community to bear on institutions or processes 
about it which hinder or block the growth of those religious 
qualities so essential to human betterment. Being an insti¬ 
tution among institutions, a community within communities, 
it may bring real social pressure to bear on evils which under¬ 
mine human life and on those forces which threaten the indi¬ 
vidual and collective realization of more meaningful and 
satisfying existence. Either singly or in cooperation with 
other religious or socially reforming organizations, the local 
church is under a high obligation to be a critic of conditions 
which militate for evil, challenging every agency whose pur¬ 
pose or activity blocks the forward thrust of the human spirit, 
and so to sponsor forces making for good that every effort 
to enrich the common experience of life may be undergirded 
and extended. 

Much of the social obligation of the local church will be 
discharged, however, if it is effective in producing and sus¬ 
taining religious men and women. The greatest social force 


IRVIN E. LUNGER 


211 


available to the religious community is resident in those indi¬ 
viduals who share its associated life and are committed to its 
high purposes. To live religiously, they must live as socially 
conditioned and conditioning beings. Shailer Mathews once 
observed: “ If a person is to be regarded as a socialized indi¬ 
vidual, the Christian ideal of love will, if once put into opera¬ 
tion, produce the sort of individuals who make social institu¬ 
tions better implements for forwarding human welfare .” 7 

The religious community will function with maximum 
effectiveness in the human situation as it encourages each of 
its members, in his own way and in the terms of his own 
social relationships, to work creatively for conditions of life 
which undergird religious experience and further the human 
quest for a more shared and satisfying life. The real social 
strength of any Christian bloc, composed of one or more 
religious communities, rests in the final analysis upon its suc¬ 
cess in so cultivating and enlarging the religious experience 
and imagination of its members through its inspirational and 
educative and social functions that they may become an in¬ 
creasingly effective force for good in the larger social process 
in and through which its life is lived. Only as the local 
church understands its unique relation to the rich and crea¬ 
tive heritage of Christianity and to the living human situation 
will it so live as to be the fulfillment of past ages of Christian 
experience and aspiration and the effective assurance of ever 
deepening experience and spiritual realization in these pres¬ 
ent days. 


212 


THE LOCAL CHURCH 


NOTES 

1 Edward Scribner Ames, Religion (Henry Holt & Co., 1929), pp. 282, 276. 

2 William Clayton Bower, in The Church at Work, in the Modern World, 
edited by William Clayton Bower (University of Chicago Press, 1935), p. 272. 

3 Ames, in Bower, op. cit., p. 81. 

4 Ames, Religion, p. 282. 

6 Bower, op. cit., pp. 272-73. 

6 Ibid., p. 117. 

7 Shailer Mathews, in Bower, op. cit., p. 208. 


XIX 


A PERSPECTIVE OF MISSIONS 

GUY W. SARVIS 

ORTY YEARS AGO a letter was handed to me, asking 



*■" for an office secretary to go to the Y.M.C.A. at Calcutta. 
Would I be interested in going? Yes, if I thought it was my 
duty, I would go. The following autumn found me in India, 
getting my first impressions of missionary work. Two 
things stand out in memory. The first is a new world of 
ideas. The work was with college students, and the approach 
was largely philosophical and intellectual — or so it now ap¬ 
pears to me. The problem was to make Christianity seem 
so reasonable that these young men, steeped in the philosophy 
and practice of Hinduism, might accept it. The second thing 
I remember is holding meetings, which was our most im¬ 
portant activity. I recall especially how we used to go into 
the public park in the late afternoon, carrying a baby organ, 
and sing until the crowd gathered, and then several of us 
would preach. The individuals in the crowd came and went, 
but always there was a group listening to the missionary. 

I was very young and naive myself, and the intellectual 
broadening which took place in my own life as a result of 
acting as stenographer for our double first honor Oxford 
graduate, J. N. Farquahar, when he wrote on Hinduism and 
Christianity is one of the significant things in my experience. 

213 


2I 4 


A PERSPECTIVE OF MISSIONS 


Another man who influenced me profoundly was W. M. 
Forrest, who represented the Christian Women’s Board of 
Missions and who was a man of wide scholarship and deep 
personal religion. Another member of our staff was F. W. 
Steinthal, a Dane who had gone blind in mission service and 
to whom I taught typewriting. He, also, was a highly cul¬ 
tured, religious and scholarly individual. 

On the other hand, I became vaguely aware of the young 
men among whom we lived and whom we sought to influ¬ 
ence. One, in particular, belonged to a wealthy high-caste 
family. He became interested in Christianity and involved 
in intense conflict over the question whether he should be¬ 
come a Christian. He considered himself a Christian in fact, 
but if he should be baptized, it would necessitate a complete 
break with his family, a loss of caste and the building of a 
new world of friends and interests. I remember vaguely that 
there was also some moral problem. 

In an extremely hazy fashion I began to sense the values 
which were involved — the demand of the missionaries that 
the social connections of individuals be destroyed and that 
the institutions in which they lived and which made up the 
very fabric of their lives be undermined. The new institu¬ 
tions and social status seemed weak and unimpressive. Yet 
I was conscious of the superb quality of the missionaries who 
were seeking to change the lives of these young men, and 
that some of the young men were both winsome and able. 
I had little inkling of the motivation involved for either mis¬ 
sionaries or “ missionees,” and I have the feeling now that 
they themselves had no very clear idea of the larger signifi¬ 
cance of their work. They were intelligent, consecrated, 
zealous persons devoting their lives to a cause which then 


GUY W. SARVIS 


215 

seemed and now seems to me to be among the noblest con¬ 
ceived by man, but which they had not consciously criticized 
or evaluated. 

I returned to America, spent four years in college and three 
years in graduate school. In college I was an ardent Student 
Volunteer; and while doing graduate work in the divinity 
school at the University of Chicago, I became associated with 
Dr. Ames and the University Church of Disciples. These 
were years when new ideas and new syntheses threatened 
to destroy the single-minded ardor which had sent me to 
India and made me president of the Student Volunteers at 
Drake University. Perhaps it was persons more than ideas 
that became determinative in my life. I suppose two men 
counted most — Edward Scribner Ames and Charles R. 
Henderson. Ames talked about ideas; he was a philosopher. 
But I have never thought of him as an exponent of ideas. I 
remember the fugitive smile and the eyes that were never too 
serious to be kind and an impression of mastery and buoy¬ 
ancy that dissolved doubt and gave one a sense of sureness in 
connection with any project or idea he proposed. I suppose 
that is why we finally went to China as missionaries of this 
church and why, through the years, we have called him 
“father.” The influence of Dr. Henderson was different. 
He was the great, cosmic-hearted, clear-headed saint. He 
made it a rule “ to take a walk, to pray, and to read a poem 
every day.” He made religion concrete for me. I remember 
him today with deep emotion. These two men awoke re¬ 
sponses from two sides of my own nature. One was the 
minister-philosopher and the other was the practical Chris¬ 
tian. I went to China as a missionary with these two influ¬ 
ences in my own life. 


216 


A PERSPECTIVE OF MISSIONS 


We arrived in China in the midst of the revolution of 1911; 
we left China in 1926, and most of our possessions were de¬ 
stroyed by the army of Chiang Kai-shek in Nanking in 1927. 
China was in turmoil. The people refer to four plagues — 
flood, drought, robbers and soldiers. They often add a fifth 
— foreign imperialists. To a certain extent these plagues had 
been present throughout Chinese history; but in this period 
they were accentuated because the old fabric of Chinese civili¬ 
zation was disintegrating. It was in such a period that our 
missionary work in China was done. Human needs were 
urgent; culture was disintegrating; people everywhere were 
seeking adjustments in a new world. 

Our first missionary days were in Shanghai where, with 
incredibly fantastic and often tragic results, West meets East. 
Of course we saw much of missions and missionaries. We 
found that they were “just folks.” They represented the 
churches which sent them. There were not many from 
churches like the University Church of Disciples — but there 
are not many such churches! In America each church at¬ 
tracts a somewhat homogeneous membership; but within the 
missionary body there are the widest extremes. We often 
found ourselves puzzled and lonely, for even among our 
own missionaries there were such wide differences in out¬ 
look that it was difficult to avoid conflict. Early I became 
secretary to our mission Advisory Committee, and one of 
my first memories of the period is the painful process which 
finally culminated in a request for the resignation of two of 
our fellow missionaries who were so sure of God’s will that 
they were unable to accept the decisions of the mission. 

In due time — a very short time — I assumed my duties 
as teacher of sociology and economics (and, from time to 


GUY W. SARVIS 


217 


time, many other subjects!) in the University of Nanking. 
The text we used was Ellwood’s Sociology and Modern So¬ 
cial Problems, a large portion of which was devoted to the 
problems of the American family, with much stress on di¬ 
vorce! The procedure struck me as fantastic. At the time 
I knew almost nothing about the family organization in 
which my students had grown up, but even then I sensed the 
incongruity between the textbook and their lives. This lack 
of coincidence between service and need (as I then saw it) 
was characteristic of almost every phase of the work of the 
university, as well as of other mission work. There was 
implicit in it all the same conflict which I had seen in the 
Indian student who hesitated to be baptized. However, the 
situation in China was much more fluid. There was much 
more outreaching for Western culture. One thing puzzled 
me at the time. Our teaching was in English and included 
Shakespeare, but we required also the study of the Chinese 
classics. The classics and the Bible were the most unpopular 
subjects, while English and sociology were among the most 
popular. This bothered us, for we did not want to “ West¬ 
ernize ” our students, since they were destined to live in 
China. But their demands did not coincide with our ideas. 
A Western education, and especially English, meant in¬ 
creased earning power and prestige and even the possibility 
of going to America and winning a Ph.D. and the status and 
salary it commanded. We used American textbooks because 
we had no other — modern textbooks in Chinese did not 
exist, and we could not have taught from them if we had had 
them. We introduced American football and American 
methods of college administration because we were familiar 
with them; and these were accepted because, for the most 


2 l8 


A PERSPECTIVE OF MISSIONS 


part, the students liked and honored their teachers and be¬ 
cause, in general, the West had prestige. I now see that, since 
our real function was to bridge the gulf between East and 
West, our procedure was not unintelligent. 

One of my earliest experiences was in a country station 
(now called Hofei) with Dr. Butchart. The Advisory Com¬ 
mittee met there. In those days there were no Chinese mem¬ 
bers, and one source of satisfaction in my own mind is that 
I was later one of those who helped reorganize mission gov¬ 
ernment so that it included both Chinese and missionaries. 
The years have seen sweeping changes which have in¬ 
creased the responsibility of Chinese in the church and its 
related institutions. Dr. Butchart was one of the most 
resourceful and well informed men I ever met. He was a 
liberal, and had his difficulties in reconciling himself to 
working with persons who seemed to him narrow-minded 
and shortsighted. I remember how impatient he was about 
the open-membership and immersion controversy. His hos¬ 
pital and house were full of devices to facilitate living in a 
place which was inaccessible to a department store or a re¬ 
pair man. We talked of many of the issues of life as we 
trudged out into the country where there was a boy in his 
teens who had become insane. I was amazed at the pro¬ 
cedure of the doctor in treating this patient. The whole 
trouble was that his intestines had become so impacted with 
worms that normal functioning of the body was impossible. 
A simple vermifuge and appropriate mechanical treatment 
relieved him, and in a few days he was normal again. I 
mentally multiplied this incident by thousands, and later 
learned of the countless parasites which infect the Chinese 
people. Now, as I remember Dr. Butchart and his kind and 


GUY W. SARVIS 


2I 9 

the far-reaching work for personal and public health done 
by missionary and other American agencies, their work seems 
to me to be of a piece with that of Dr. Henderson who gave 
his life in service for the laborers of Illinois, and with that of 
Jesus who “ went about doing good.” 

Famine by flood and famine by drought! We had not 
been in China very long before we met two Irishmen, Joseph 
Bailey and Alexander Paul. They were both connected with 
famine. There was famine in the north when we went to 
Nanking. Joseph Bailey was rough and crude and impulsive 
and bighearted. He was a Presbyterian who had theological 
difficulties. The beggars who had flocked into the city used 
to collect at the gate, and Bailey would fill his pockets with 
copper coins and go out and distribute them as long as they 
lasted. But the crowds got bigger and bigger, and when 
his coppers were gone, his life was endangered. He pon¬ 
dered on the matter and came to believe that people might 
be rehabilitated if they were put onto the land. From that 
idea grew the College of Agriculture and Forestry of the 
University of Nanking, an institution which has done and is 
doing today in free China monumental service. 

Floods had broken the dikes along the Yangtze. Alex¬ 
ander Paul was an evangelistic missionary and had a school 
in Wuhu. He devoured the baseball news and embarrassed 
me by talking about Babe Ruth. I never admitted to him 
that I didn't know who Babe Ruth was! No matter what 
was wrong in China, some missionary was likely to be in¬ 
volved in trying to set it right. So when it was decided that 
some kind of WPA was needed instead of cash relief, the 
committee decided to build dikes. Alex Paul was asked to 
boss the job. We went to visit him on the houseboat where 


220 


A PERSPECTIVE OF MISSIONS 


he had established himself. He must see that the earth of 
which the dikes were made was properly tamped and of the 
right kind, that the headmen did not cheat the laborers and 
that quarrels were adjusted. He knew that in a tense situ¬ 
ation a laugh is always better than an argument. So he 
kept hundreds of men working harmoniously, built the dikes 
and fed the people whom the hungry river sought to devour. 
He did not talk about religion at all, I suppose. But he in¬ 
carnated a spirit — name it as you will. 

Later the time came when drought destroyed the crops 
of a province in north China. The committee asked for 
volunteers. I got leave of absence and, with one of our wisest 
Chinese pastors, went up to help. The country was infested 
with bandits. There was not enough relief grain to go 
around. We canvassed the villages (it took five days to 
drive across my territory) and issued tickets to the most 
needy. We feared that those who did not receive tickets 
might mob us, but they only said, “ Ai-ah, fate is unkind to 
us! ” Girls were selling at three dollars each. One rarely 
went outside a village without encountering an unburied 
corpse. It was during this period that I came into intimate 
contact with a “ fundamentalist ” group of missionaries. 
They were giving all their strength and resources to caring 
for the needy. At one place I remember two women who 
were caring for two boys whose feet had been frozen off and 
who were suffering from gangrene. The task was repulsive 
in the extreme, and one saw no hope for the boys, even if 
they should survive. “ What’s the good ? ” was my inner 
question. But I went away ashamed of my own smugness, 
feeling that somehow here in this isolated station in central 
China there walked again a spirit which is infinitely precious 
among human beings who must learn to live together. 


GUY W. SARVIS 


221 


I remember a night in the western hills. There were three 
or four Westerners and Dr. Hu Shih, now Chinese ambassa¬ 
dor at Washington. We spent the night at the Temple of 
the Sleeping Buddha. Dr. Hu had studied at Cornell Uni¬ 
versity, and the story went that he was once “ almost per¬ 
suaded ” to be a Christian. When one meets a person like 
him one begins to wonder about definitions — what is a 
Christian ? He was not a direct “ product ” of missions at 
all, yet into his life had been woven the influences of many 
missionaries and missionary institutions. I said to him that 
night, “ I don’t know whether we educational missionaries 
are planting seeds to grow up or scattering dynamite to blow 
up.” He answered, quite casually, “ Perhaps you are doing 
neither.” I wonder whether he would make that remark 
today. In any event, in the leadership of China in recent 
years Christian influence has been dominant above any other 
influence from the West. In the vast and complicated web 
of life we cannot untangle the threads that make the pattern, 
but I suppose that my wife and I shall always feel that our 
really significant years were those that in some fashion went 
into the renascent Chinese nation. 

I have been trying to suggest by the incidents I have re¬ 
lated something of the realities which make up what we 
call “ missions.” What of the church ? What of Chinese 
saints? What of conversions and religious experiences? I 
have known some Chinese men and women, humble or ex¬ 
alted, who deserve to be called saints. Not many church 
members, in China or America, deserve the title, but there 
are always some — prophets, seers, mystics, ministers! And 
the church has been to the Christian movement what the 
miners and farmers and fishers and hunters are to our eco¬ 
nomic life, the producer of raw materials. Schools, hospitals, 


222 


A PERSPECTIVE OF MISSIONS 


Christian institutions of all kinds have been possible only be¬ 
cause the gospel has been preached everywhere and little 
groups of converts and friends have been formed from which 
have come the leaders. Less dramatic than other institutions, 
but fundamental to all, are these groups of Christians. And 
the gospel has brought unmeasured comfort and courage and 
peace and hope to thousands. 

In these forty years, what has happened to missions? 
Nothing has happened which makes the basic process which 
they represent less significant. Missions have always been 
an aspect or quality of a larger process which sociologists 
call cultural accommodation. In a static world there are no 
missions because there is no change. Christian missions have 
always reflected rather definitely the forms, beliefs and val¬ 
ues of the church from which missionaries were sent; and 
the church has always been a mediator of the values of the 
culture in which it is found. The modern missionary move¬ 
ment has been contemporaneous with the expansion of West¬ 
ern civilization. Indeed, it has been an unconscious instru¬ 
ment for the spread of that civilization. It is pointless to 
assess the value of the Westernization of the world; it is 
evident that there was no alternative. 

Seen in long perspective, then, missions represent those 
aspects of acculturation of the non-Western world by the 
West which have to do specifically with the transfer of ideal 
and spiritual values. It was inevitable and desirable that they 
should also carry with them much of the material culture 
of the West; and there was no means of avoiding certain 
disservices in the process of destroying the old and creating 
the new. But the essential fact is that, as the church in the 
West has preserved essential old values and contributed to 


GUY W. SARVIS 


223 


the creation of new values, missions have served a like pur¬ 
pose— but missionaries have probably been more dynamic 
and resourceful than the church in the West. 

What of the future? We cannot know. The question 
concerning the future of missions has many elements in com¬ 
mon with that concerning the future of the church and of 
religion and of democracy. It is clear that the age of im¬ 
perialism (in the sense in which we know it) has come to 
an end. Western peoples have occupied all the vacant spaces 
on the earth. So long, however, as great inequalities of cul¬ 
ture exist, it is probable that religious missions will continue. 
The world is at the moment undergoing such violent change 
that any more precise judgment is hardly possible. But men 
will always need that outreaching of the privileged to the 
underprivileged and that insistence on the eternity of values 
which have been the essence of missions. 


XX 


CHRISTIANITY AND THE 
EASTERN RELIGIONS 

CLARENCE W. HAMILTON 
HRISTIANITY, though linked historically with West- 



ern culture, had its beginnings in the Orient. The circle 
of its insights, as is shown in the history of religions, is over¬ 
lapped by value-discernments of other Oriental faiths. What 
does this signify ? Modern interpreters of Eastern religions 
sometimes read the fact in favor of indigenous systems that 
have never been Westernized. Modern Christians note the 
same fact, but not infrequently have been perplexed to know 
what to do with it. How ought the Christian way of life to 
stand related to non-Christian systems which also cherish 
recognized values of man’s higher life ? In the past the ques¬ 
tion has often enough been dismissed as irrelevant because 
of the assumed superiority of Christianity as the religion of 
a triumphant civilization. Today it becomes too urgent to 
neglect when both East and West face degradation of all 
higher values in disruptions besetting every traditional cul¬ 
ture. 

We here propose to examine the question in the light of 
recent treatments. Four notable studies have appeared within 
the last four years, signs of growing concern in the watch- 
towers of thought. Written from different points of view, 


CLARENCE W. HAMILTON 


225 

they are the more enlightening when considered together. 
hiving Religions and a World Faith, by William Ernest 
Hocking, 1 represents the matured reflections of an American 
religious liberal. The Christian Message in a Non-Christian 
World, by the Dutch scholar, Hendrik Kraemer, 2 speaks with 
the voice of European neo-orthodoxy and was written for 
discussion at the Madras Missionary Conference in 1938. 
Outside Protestant circles the position of a Swiss Catholic is 
stated in Otto Karrer’s Religions of Mankind? Beyond the 
domain of Western thinkers the outlook of reinterpreted 
Hinduism is represented by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan in his 
Eastern Religions and Western Thought? 

We turn first to the Indian analysis. Professor Radhakrish¬ 
nan writes primarily as a philosopher, interested to find link¬ 
age of spirit between Hindu and Western religious thought. 
The tragedy of contemporary life, as he sees it, lies in the fact 
that, while the world becomes increasingly one through ex¬ 
ternal, material communications, it has no corresponding 
unity of soul. The remedy must be “ a changing of men’s 
hearts and minds ” so that the body of world community 
may be animated by a healthy unity of spirit. Such ministra¬ 
tion is something that belongs preeminently to the sphere 
and function of religion. 

Shaping the soul of modern man, however, is a task of 
religion, not in its traditional organized forms, but in its in¬ 
ner truth and essence. In the meeting of Eastern and West¬ 
ern religions, conflict and competition due to divergencies 
should be retired in order to develop a spirit of comprehen¬ 
sion, free from prejudice and misunderstanding, that shall 
bring regard for one another as varied expressions of a single 
truth. Hinduism, as Professor Radhakrishnan sees it, has 


226 CHRISTIANITY AND EASTERN RELIGIONS 


cherished such a spirit for nearly fifty centuries. From the 
days when vedic Aryans invaded India, mingling their ideas 
and rituals with those of aboriginal tribes and Dravidian peo¬ 
ples, leaders of Indian culture have been haunted by the 
dream of spiritual unity. Buddha and Sankara, no less than 
Ramakrishna and Gandhi, believed in absolute truth and re¬ 
garded all particular faiths as apprehending different aspects 
of that truth. Hence the mosaic of religious aspirations 
which is Hinduism. Such universal tolerance is ready to 
welcome truth in Islam and in Christianity, in religions of 
China and Japan as well as in religions of the West. Out¬ 
side of India, China also has partaken of the great Eastern 
tradition of tolerance, as we can see in the intertwining of 
its Taoist, Confucian and Buddhist attitudes. 

So Professor Radhakrishnan believes that the spiritual unity 
of religions as well as the healing of an outwardly interrelated 
but inwardly discordant world is to be sought in supreme 
devotion to absolute truth. In itself this truth reaches far 
beyond all particular formulations and embodiments. Com¬ 
pared with these latter it remains formless, mysterious, tran¬ 
scendent, something to be more but never completely known. 
Consequently the claim to finality of any one historical re¬ 
ligion contravenes the unity of spirit in which all alike should 
share. Judaism, Islam and Christianity have made such 
claims and have accordingly failed to realize the relativity 
of their dogmas and to achieve the true spirit of toleration 
which Radhakrishnan exalts. Yet from his point of view 
Judaism creates no serious problem, for the “ chosen people ” 
have had no passion to convert the world; and Islam, though 
originally militant and inelastic, has in India had its dogma¬ 
tism softened by contact with Hinduism, while its modern 


CLARENCE W. HAMILTON 


227 

variant, Bahaism, urges free religious fellowship with those 
of all faiths. Christianity alone has the greatest problem of 
adjustment and in meeting with other religions finds itself in 
inner conflict. This conflict appears, as the Hindu philoso¬ 
pher sees it, in three diverging attitudes — reactionary, con¬ 
servative and liberal. 

Christian reactionism he sees in Karl Barth, the Swiss theo¬ 
logian who holds that divine revelation belongs to Christi¬ 
anity alone. Since Christians have already received the per¬ 
fect revelation they must abandon all attempts to see values 
in other religions. Under no circumstances must Christen¬ 
dom “ howl with the wolves.” 5 Her sole duty is to witness 
to the Word of God. In this position of splendid religious 
isolation Barth has the support of one vein of Christian tra¬ 
dition. To the Indian thinker, however, such a contention 
means that non-Christian religions are regarded as “un¬ 
touchable.” But this is incredible! “ We cannot dismiss as 
negligible,” he writes, 

the sense of the majesty of, God and consequent reverence in worship 
which are conspicuous in Islam, the deep sympathy for the world’s 
sorrow and unselfish search for a way of escape in Buddhism, the de¬ 
sire for contact with ultimate reality in Hinduism, the belief in a moral 
order of the universe and consequent insistence on moral conduct in 
Confucius. 6 

Great church fathers like Clement, Origen and Augustine 
did not deny the working of the Divine Word outside the 
specifically Christian religion. Hence Barth does not repre¬ 
sent the only Christian tradition nor the only possible Chris¬ 
tian attitude toward other faiths. 

Less intransigent than the reactionary Barthian view is the 
conservative attitude. It concedes good elements in other 


228 CHRISTIANITY AND EASTERN RELIGIONS 


religions but regards these as half-lights, partial insights 
which are of value as preparations for the perfect revelation 
in Christianity which is the peak, the crown, the completion 
of the religion of humanity. The light of Christianity is as 
the blazing sun, that of other religions as the faint shining of 
distant stars. Here the strong undertone is not so much in¬ 
tolerance as an assured sense of superiority. Yet it is no less 
an affirmation of finality that upholds aggressive missionary 
effort and would win converts to Christianity from other 
religions even though it appreciates non-Christian religious 
values in their due subordination. The attitude is beautifully 
expressed by men like Dr. Macnicol and Dr. Farquhar, both 
of whom have written valuable books on Indian religions. 
To the Indian mind, however, it is linked with “ proselyt- 
ism ” and infected with an ultimate inflexibility that hinders 
give-and-take in real religious growth. 

Full approval is reserved for the third Christian attitude 
which is described as left wing liberalism in which the es¬ 
sentially Hindu attitude on religious relations is attained. 
This repudiates religious imperialism, regards no religion in 
its present form as final, and would have the great religions, 
including Christianity, regard themselves as “ friendly part¬ 
ners in the supreme task of nourishing the spiritual life of 
mankind.” This attitude Professor Radhakrishnan feels he 
detects in certain passages of the Jerusalem Conference re¬ 
ports, in affirmations of the Laymen’s Foreign Missions In¬ 
quiry (in Re-t hinging Missions ), and in specific statements 
of some Christian missionaries who separate evangelism from 
proselytism, plead for “ mutuality in giving and receiving,” 
or even practice non-interference with ancestral faiths. 7 Im¬ 
pressively he interprets its meaning as follows: 


CLARENCE W. HAMILTON 


229 

In a restless and disordered world which is unbelieving to an extent 
which we have all too little realized, where sinister superstitions are set¬ 
ting forth their rival claims to the allegiance of men, we cannot afford 
to waver in our determination that the whole of humanity shall remain 
a united people, where Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu 
shall stand together bound by common devotion, not to something 
behind but to something ahead, not to a racial past or a geographical 
unit, but to a great dream of a world society with a universal reli¬ 
gion of which the historical faiths are but branches. 8 

Thus is conceived the search for “ the world’s unborn soul.” 

Professor Radhakrishnan’s arresting analysis of East-West 
religious relations from the viewpoint of Neo-Hinduism is 
balanced by an equally striking analysis from the Catholic 
point of view by Otto Karrer. Here likewise we find the 
cry for spiritual unity in a single humanity now tragically 
sundered by radical cleavages in the profoundest depths of 
emotional life, with consequences in the outer order patent 
to all. Such unity, however, Karrer does not believe attain¬ 
able by the modern Hindu attitude “ whose Universal Gos¬ 
pel with undiscriminating acceptance approves every form 
of belief, even ‘ atheistic belief,’ provided its adherents are 
sincere.” 9 In view of the luxuriant jungle of mythology, 
speculation, ritual and superstition which is explored and 
mapped by the history of religions, this attitude implies too 
conglomerate a synthesis for the guidance of man. It would 
also place all religions on the same level, something which 
Christianity has never done. For Christians, the unity of 
religions is discernible only in the light of a supreme revela¬ 
tion which is the norm of judgment for all the ways of faith. 
Does this attitude issue in harsh intolerance and exclusion ? 
No, thinks Karrer. By its very nature it compels the recog¬ 
nition that “ there is one God who is the Father, Redeemer 


2 3 o CHRISTIANITY AND EASTERN RELIGIONS 

and Sanctifier of all men of good will.” 10 Men of good will 
have lived before the time and beyond the bounds of his¬ 
toric Christianity. These God has not left without some wit¬ 
ness and awareness of himself. He is that ever present Re¬ 
ality which man discovers, even if with dim apprehension, 
and which he worships, even if ignorantly. 

So the non-Christian religions are to be respected. They 
are genuine religions and lay hold on God. Karrer masses 
the evidence. He traces the notion of God as found in an¬ 
cient and modern faiths of both East and West. He notes 
weighty ethical insights among Egyptians, Greeks, Indian 
Buddhists and devout Mohammedans. He finds authentic 
religious experience in the prayers, the mystical devotions 
and the sacrifices that have ascended in myriad forms 
throughout human history. Yet values are not indiscrimi¬ 
nately lumped. They are seen to spread in a vast spectrum 
reaching from the first crude gropings of primitive religious 
behavior to the loftiest achievements of Christian saints. 
Catholicity of this character is certainly inclusive and one 
wonders whether Christian appreciation of non-Christian 
religious values can possibly go farther. 

Challengingly enough, Karrer does go farther. Not only 
are there values in religions outside Christianity. There are 
revelation and salvation also outside the Christian church. 
God’s universal revelation to the human race appears in those 
insights and illuminations that have visited such seers and 
saints as Plato and Buddha. Unknown in their true nature 
by their recipients, these visitations are really beams from 
“ the Light which enlightens every man that cometh into the 
world.” Salvation outside the church appears at first an im¬ 
possible conception. Does not Catholic teaching claim that 


CLARENCE W. HAMILTON 


231 


the church is the sole ark of salvation ? Karrer recognizes a 
substantial rigorist strain in Catholic tradition on this point. 
Yet, threading his way carefully through the forest of various 
Catholic theological positions, he maintains that his view is 
consistent and possible. “ Anima naturaliter Christiana” 
“ The soul is naturally Christian,” as Tertullian said, and 
noble heathen are, in Augustine’s phrase, “ secret Christians.” 

Yet the Catholic thinker does not fail to stress that the con¬ 
scious Christianity of the true church is both unique and 
supreme among the faiths of man. Unique, because in 
Christ God’s revelation becomes fully explicit and definitive 
in a particular person. Supreme, because its ultimate mean¬ 
ing is “ the fulfillment of all religions.” This absolute goal 
is not to be identified with the historical, empirical church 
which falls far short of embodying its ideal. Neither indi¬ 
vidual Christian nor organized church can boast of having 
grown to the full stature of Christ. In both only humility is 
befitting. Yet too often the Christian mission has been 
identified with winning converts to the supposed superi¬ 
orities of Western civilization instead of to the one world¬ 
wide Kingdom of God over mankind, the true ecclesia sancta 
catholica which would fulfill Christ’s prayer “ that they all 
may be one.” 

In the present dark hour of history this contrast between 
the remote high goal of perfect Christianity and the failure 
of Christians to accomplish its embodiment in larger measure 
stirs in Karrer a grave but ultimately undiscouraged reflec¬ 
tion : 

It may be that before God’s hour strikes, Europe must be shaken to 
its foundations. It may be that Sigrid Undset’s vision must first be 
fulfilled and Chinese missionaries bring back the Christian faith to a 


232 CHRISTIANITY AND EASTERN RELIGIONS 

repaganized Europe. The tragedy of Christendom is great, but Chris¬ 
tianity is immortal. “ Christ yesterday, today and forever.” 11 

It is evident that Otto Karrer represents what Professor 
Radhakrishnan calls the conservative Christian attitude, but 
without claiming the superiority for the organized empirical 
church to which the Indian philosopher objects. Superfi¬ 
cially the two men appear poles asunder, rooted in different 
religions, nationalities and races. Below the surface they are 
surprisingly alike. They survey the same complex scene of 
man’s religious life. Both are concerned to seek the spiritual 
unity of mankind in devotion to an ultimate ideal which lies 
beyond complete embodiment in any particular religious 
community. For one it is the ultimately true Hinduism. For 
the other it is the ultimately true Christianity. For both the 
need for profound sympathy and understanding between 
faiths on the level of their highest meanings is undeniably 
basic. Especially so when reverence for the higher values 
of life is threatened with new and serious eclipse. 

When we enter the world of Hendrik Kraemer we find 
forebodings of tragedy deepened. Protestant Holland had 
not been invaded at the time his book was written, but from 
first chapter to epilogue the sense of advancing danger and 
crisis forms a continuing background. The world is in tran¬ 
sition. We live “ between the times.” “ Humanity is beset 
with great dangers.” 12 “ Gigantic forces of obstruction and 
enmity are arising, and make the future uncertain .” 13 In 
our planetary but disunited world, East and West alike share 
in the catastrophes of our time. The religious life of man is 
vitally affected. Everywhere religions are scrutinized as to 
their value for shaping life toward a new future but not to¬ 
ward the old religious goals. Values associated with hoary 


CLARENCE W. HAMILTON 


233 


traditions face wholesale destruction. The great world re¬ 
ligions, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity, thus 
find themselves together in a fellowship of suffering and acid 
test. How shall their interrelation be conceived ? 

As against the wide tolerance of Radhakrishnan and the 
hospitable catholicity of Karrer, Kraemer’s answer is given 
in terms of an intense Christian absolutism. The fiery test¬ 
ings of trampling events force the church back from reliance 
on all rudiments of secular culture to the inner core and foun¬ 
dation of its being. The unshakable rock is the truth as re¬ 
vealed in Jesus Christ. This revelation is not only ultimate; 
it is exclusive. It is divinely given, not humanly attained. 
Hence the values in non-Christian faiths, however noble as 
human achievements, are in a totally different dimension 
from that which is expressed in the words: “ I am the Way, 
the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except 
through me.” This is no climax and fulfillment of a “ gen¬ 
eral revelation ” found in all religions. It is the single divine 
revelation, qualitatively as well as supremely distinct. Hence 
the only right relation of Christianity with other religions 
is the wholly missionary one of bringing the message of this 
word to those who know it not. 

Emphatic absolutism of this sort promises much for mis¬ 
sionary zeal but little for simple friendliness and sympathetic 
understanding between Christian and non-Christian religious 
persons. Kraemer, however, is too well informed a scholar 
and too realistic a missionary observer to identify his abso¬ 
lute revelation with the attainments of quite human Chris¬ 
tians and church organizations. To present these as norm 
and goal to prospective Eastern converts is merely to mani¬ 
fest unwarranted pride in the values of so-called Christian 


234 CHRISTIANITY AND EASTERN RELIGIONS 

culture at the cost of blindness to other, real values in non- 
Christian cultures. Genuine Christian love for non-Chris¬ 
tian religious persons, on the contrary, must include sensitive 
understanding for all that is dear and meaningful to them in 
order to present basic Christian meanings in terms appreci¬ 
able by them. The Christian message, couched in terms of 
Western religion, is inevitably foreign and unadapted. 

Adaptation of the rich religious and philosophical termi¬ 
nology of Eastern culture, however, is for the purpose of 
strategy in statement. In the end it means to express the 
one revelation in Christ as the unique and only way of sal¬ 
vation. For Kraemer, the meeting of religions is not an oc¬ 
casion whereby Eastern faiths find their fulfillment in Christ, 
as the Catholic Karrer holds. It is the occasion of their judg¬ 
ment. “ Christ, as the ultimate standard of reference, is the 
crisis of all religions, of the non-Christian religions and of 
empirical Christianity too.” 14 

The quality of Kraemer’s thought is aroused, dramatic, 
incisive, full of urgency for Christian decision in the world’s 
present critical hour. As we pass to the thought of William 
Ernest Hocking we are aware of a great change. Here are 
serenity, patience, continuity with thinking done before the 
First World War, and a far perspective that dares still to look 
beyond the tremendous convulsions of the present. We are 
reminded that it was but yesterday that the impact of civiliza¬ 
tion upon civilization began, and that the deepest implica¬ 
tion of universally spread commerce and science is to be found 
not in the tragic passing of regional cultural systems but in 
an eventual world culture whose fullness is yet to come. 

Our problem now appears in a different light. Existing 
religions first emerged in company with particular regional 


CLARENCE W. HAMILTON 


235 

cultures. They are particularized versions of what may be 
called the essence of all religion. But a faith adequate for a 
world culture must be a world faith. That is, in it the essence 
of religion must be adapted to the world situation and so be 
a concrete religion for mankind as a whole. The problem is 
to know how to grow from our present situation of plural 
local faiths toward the one ultimate world faith. 

Hocking analyzes three possible ways. One is by radical 
displacement of all other religions by that which is held to 
be unique and final. Barth and Kraemer represent this way. 
It is the way of missionary conquest. Pedagogically, how¬ 
ever, Hocking finds it unsound. It insulates Asian converts 
and church communities from their normal cultural herit¬ 
age. It creates a community which, while claiming univer¬ 
sality in its significance, remains actually foreign and Western 
in its impression on the non-Christian religious environment. 

Another way is by synthesis, that is, by mutual teaching 
and learning between religions so that there is incorporation 
in one’s own religion of elements drawn from other reli¬ 
gions. Here the spirit of liberal appreciation is to the fore. 
Broad inclusion of everything good in every religion — that 
is the logical aim. In excess, the process too easily issues in 
a formless conglomerate. Used legitimately, it is the way by 
which a given religion assimilates from other faiths accre¬ 
tions of ideas and practices consistent with its own truth and 
individuality. Thus Christianity in its early days absorbed 
much from the Greco-Roman world without losing its own 
identity. Why not again in Asia ? “ I venture to propose,” 
writes Hocking, “ that no religion can become a religion for 
Asia which does not fuse the spiritual genius of Asia with 
that of Western Christianity .” 15 Christianity could far sur- 


236 CHRISTIANITY AND EASTERN RELIGIONS 

pass its Western form were it more hospitable to relevant 
riches in Eastern faiths. 

Yet synthesis is not the final way to a world faith. At best 
it promotes convergence of religions through enrichment of 
content. Their profound unity of essence, however, is not 
yet grasped. A higher process is necessary. This process, 
set forth with characteristic power of philosophical statement, 
is named by Hocking the way of reconception. By encoun¬ 
tering new forms of excellence in other faiths we dive down 
more deeply into our own, so to speak, and discover there the 
primal root, unseen before, whence the truths of both our 
own and other faiths have sprung. Thus each religion grows 
into the world faith, deepening and reconceiving its own 
understanding of the essence of all religion until at last the 
spiritual unity of mankind becomes evident to all, and free. 

As a Christian layman, Professor Hocking meditates on the 
possible role of Christianity in the growth toward world faith. 
He recognizes that at this stage it is not yet ready to serve as 
the world faith. In its Western form its bearing on problems 
of social institutions, of war, property and the family is un¬ 
certain. It is not inclusive of some values which Eastern reli¬ 
gions definitely have. For example, Islam is impressive in its 
strong awareness of the majesty and near presence of God. 
Hinduism is admirable in its knowledge of meditation and se¬ 
renity of spirit. Buddhism understands how to enjoy the im¬ 
personal element of ultimate truth. Confucianism is unsur¬ 
passed in the intensity of its humanity. In all these respects 
Christians may learn to deepen the quality of their own re¬ 
ligious grasp, indeed must do so if they are to have the full 
respect of the East. A Christianity thus deepened and recon¬ 
ceived so as increasingly to include all excellence known and 


CLARENCE W. HAMILTON 


237 

to be known by man will be a fitting candidate for the world’s 
faith. So would an equally reconceived Buddhism, Confu¬ 
cianism or Islam. By the time of arrival at a genuine world 
faith, however, the matter of name may be expected to be un¬ 
important. But what of Christ? They are moving words 
with which Professor Hocking concludes: 

The figure of Christ can never serve the cause of world faith as the 
perquisite of a favoured group, still less as an escape from induced 
fears. “ Accept this sign or perish ” is an attitude which now incites 
rejection, because the spirit of man has become too much informed 
by Christianity. As a privilege, the Christ symbol “ will draw all 
men as a threat, never. But as the meaning of this symbol becomes 
purified of partisanship and folly, rejection becomes arbitrary, its tem¬ 
per will pass, and the perfect interpretation of the human heart will 
assume its due place. When in hoc signo ceases to be a battle cry, it 
will ascend as token of another conquest, the conquest of estrangement 
among the seekers of God. 16 

On the question of the relation between Christianity and 
the Eastern faiths we have surveyed four wide-reaching and 
significant positions. We need not ask which thinker is ulti¬ 
mately right. Their differing convictions will appeal to 
different followings. What impresses the present writer is 
the fact that they are not so far apart as their mutual criticisms 
imply. Radhakrishnan is not so undiscriminating with refer¬ 
ence to religious values as Karrer’s view of Hinduism would 
indicate; nor is Karrer’s conception of universal Christianity 
the inflexible religious imperialism which the Indian scholar 
denounces. Even the flaming, dramatic absolutism of Krae- 
mer is at heart a spiritual, not an intellectual, emphasis, and 
makes more room for Christian linkage with Eastern reli¬ 
gious heritage than is credited to it by Hocking. Finally 
Hocking, representative of all that free, “ unbiblical,” relativ- 


238 CHRISTIANITY AND EASTERN RELIGIONS 

istic Christian idealism at which Kraemer shudders, shows 
that his reluctance to make of the name of Christ a crusading 
slogan springs from a profound reverence for the meaning 
of Christ in the highest realms of spirit. 

The great significance of these four studies in our time lies 
in their collective emphasis on the importance of the quality 
of religion by which men in the future will live. For man 
must live by some kind of faith. Against the black back¬ 
ground of war, inhumanity, disregard for individual per¬ 
sonality and the elevation of debasing myths, this fact stands 
out. Peoples must not throw away their own most precious 
insights nor ignore the truth that is given to others. Wher¬ 
ever man has been enabled to see deeply into the great values 
of human association and its higher realizations, those worths 
must never be forgotten but should become the common pos¬ 
session of all. What the faiths cannot do separately and in 
isolation they may learn to do together and in fruitful inter¬ 
change. For Christianity in its world environment the op¬ 
portunity is great and significant. Let the faiths know one 
another’s depths so that men may have all possible light 
when, beyond the desolations of the cultures they have 
known, they seek to build anew. 


NOTES 

1 William Ernest Hocking, Living Religions and a World Faith, The Macmillan 
Co., 1940. 

2 Hendrik Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, Pub¬ 
lished for the International Missionary Council by Harper & Bros., 1938. 

3 Otto Karrer, Religions of Mankind, Sheed & Ward, 1936. 

4 Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Eastern Religions and Western Thought, Oxford 
University Press, 1939; 2nd cd., 1940. 


CLARENCE W. HAMILTON 


239 

5 This expression of Barth’s is quoted in Nicol Macnicol’s Is Christianity 
Unique? (Wilde Lecture, Oxford, 1935), pp. 168-69. 

6 Radhakrishnan, op. cit., p. 342. 

7 Ibid., pp. 345-47- 

8 Ibid., p. 347. 

9 Karrer, op. cit., p. 3. 

10 Ibid., p. 6. 

11 Ibid., p. 228. 

12 Kraemer, op. cit., p. 1. 

13 Ibid., p. 444. 

14 Ibid., p. no. 

15 Hocking, op. cit., p. 185. 

16 Ibid., p. 269. 


XXI 


THE ECUMENICAL IDEAL 


HERBERT L. WILLETT 


HERE IS a growing conviction among Christian leaders 



A that the most urgent problem now awaiting solution in 
the area of church life is that of Christian unity. The evi¬ 
dent cause of the confessed and deplored weakness of the re¬ 
ligious movement in our time is the crude wastefulness and 
lack of cooperation which characterize the denominations 
in their relation to each other and to the common tasks which 
call for united action. There are numerous stressful situa¬ 
tions in our social order and in world relations to which re¬ 
lief can be brought only by the unity of the Christian forces 
in the United States and western Europe. These harassing 
perplexities run the gamut all the way from the injustices 
of the present industrial and economic systems to the stark 
iniquity and tragedy of war. With such evils no instrumen¬ 
tality is adequate to cope save the unified and aggressive 
Christian church. 

God wills the unity of those who profess the faith of Jesus 
Christ. It was the burden of the intercessory prayer of the 
Master. It was the dream of the apostle Paul. The saints 
in all the ages have grieved over a divided church. Rosmini 
declared that of the five wounds that marred the body of 


HERBERT L. WILLETT 


241 


Jesus on the cross the most grievous was the great rent in his 
side which was the symbol of the divisions in the ranks of 
his friends. It is beyond conception that any sensitive fol¬ 
lower of our Lord should regard the present divided condi¬ 
tion of the church as desirable or the efforts under way to 
remedy that condition unnecessary or negligible. No one is 
happy over the divisions in the ranks of believers, save those 
who are enemies of the Christian enterprise. “ Divide and 
conquer ” is the tactic of every antagonist of the church or of 
any other holy cause. Milton tells of Satan’s divisive counsel 
for the thwarting of the divine purpose in creation. It was 
the strategy employed by Saladin in his campaigns against 
the crusaders. In the World War the western powers were 
worsted until they learned the necessity of a united force and 
a central command. The divided church is the Achilles’ 
heel of the Christian adventure. 

Appeals for the greater integration of Christian forces 
come from all parts of the church and all the continents of 
the world. Christian statesmen as conspicuous and repre¬ 
sentative as the Archbishop of York, John R. Mott, E. Stanley 
Jones and Toyohiko Kagawa are voicing a widespread mood 
of unrest on the part of multitudes in all areas of church life 
at the divisions that prevail among the members of the Chris¬ 
tian society, and earnest pleas for more urgent devotion to 
the problem of unity and concord. “ The world is too strong 
for a divided church,” was the warning word of Archbishop 
Brent at the Lausanne Conference. “ Christians, unite! ” is 
the message of Stanley Jones, the apostle of India. Arch¬ 
bishop Soderblom of Sweden said at the Stockholm meeting, 
“ We must unite or perish.” And Bishop Azariah of Dorna- 
kal said at the Edinburgh assembly of 1937, speaking for the 


242 


THE ECUMENICAL IDEAL 


missionary cause in the Orient, “To the younger churches 
the question of Christian unity is a matter of life or death.” 
The disastrous results of economic and other forms of compe¬ 
tition among the denominations, the impression of rivalry 
and inefficiency made upon an observing world by opposing 
sects, and particularly the critical situation on the mission 
fields where secularism and arrogant nationalism are displac¬ 
ing heathenism much more rapidly than is Christianity, are 
causes of grave concern to all who have the Christian move¬ 
ment at heart. 

In the essentials of belief and conduct Christians are the 
most united group in the world. The basic ideals of the 
Kingdom of God are shared by all communions and all their 
members. The evangel of Jesus took account of all human 
values, and wherever such values are recognized they are 
found to be religious in their nature. The limitations of 
church efficiency lie largely in the peripheral areas of dogmas, 
ritual and organization. Where emphasis is laid upon these 
features there is inevitable neglect of the fundamental in¬ 
terests of religion. And it has been the outstanding weak¬ 
ness of the Christian society through the centuries that it has 
been betrayed too frequently into devotion to these minor 
concerns to the neglect of the vital features of belief and be¬ 
havior that affect all the relationships of human life. 

The recognition of this comprehensive nature of religion, 
as embracing all the essentials of worthful human experience, 
provides a groundwork for an all-embracing religious fellow¬ 
ship, above the level of parochial and partial interests. And 
it is this higher horizon of moral and spiritual interests to 
which sensitive and liberal-minded Christian leaders have 
directed their attention through the years. At its best the 


HERBERT L. WILLETT 


243 

church has always been concerned to maintain the “ unity of 
the spirit in the bond of peace.” Divergence from the normal 
and accepted principles of the faith has always been depre¬ 
cated and resisted. The standard of belief and practice cher¬ 
ished by most of the church fathers was enshrined in the 
familiar motto, " Quod semper, quod ubique, et quod ab 
omnibus creditum est.” And where there were departures 
from this norm of universal acceptance there was solicitude 
and some attempt at correction. That these remedial meas¬ 
ures frequently took the form of persecution is one of the 
regrettable features of church history, a feature on which cul¬ 
tural progress has placed its seal of disapproval. 

The story of the development of divisions in the church 
is long and instructive. In contrast with the present frag¬ 
mentary estate of the Christian society, there lies spread upon 
the pages of the New Testament the description of a very 
different and quite simple community of the friends and fol¬ 
lowers of Jesus. Apparently neither the Master nor his first 
interpreters had in mind any fixed pattern of procedure in 
the initiation or ordering of the early Christian groups. It 
would seem that they assumed the varied forms of the social 
structure about them, whether Jewish, Greek or Roman. The 
men whose age and character gave them recognition as 
spiritual leaders were known variously as elders, presbyters, 
episcopoi, bishops, pastors, shepherds — terms borrowed 
from either religious or secular callings, and apparently hav¬ 
ing much the same meaning. Of these leaders there seem 
to have been several in each congregation, although by the 
end of the second century one of the number tended to se¬ 
cure recognition as primus inter pares. 

That there was any formal or official sanction given to 


THE ECUMENICAL IDEAL 


244 

these men beyond that which age and wisdom authenticated 
is not evident from the apostolic documents. This is the con¬ 
viction of such experts in Christian history as Lightfoot, Hort, 
Schaff, Lindsay and Streeter. Jesus tried to make it clear 
to certain of his disciples who were covetous of place and 
power that there were no offices to be distributed among them. 
The impression gained from the study of the first records of 
the church is that our Lord would have counted matters of 
organization, office, ritual and procedure as trivial in com¬ 
parison with the ideals of the Kingdom which he was con¬ 
cerned to announce, and which find their embodiment in 
the Sermon on the Mount. Likewise the apostle Paul, while 
he gave many suggestions concerning the activities and be¬ 
havior of the Christian communities under his care, evidently 
regarded these matters as of small importance in comparison 
with his august conception of the growing society of believers, 
the exemplars of the truths proclaimed by Jesus. To him the 
supreme interest in life lay in the person and teaching of 
Christ, the eternal and divine disclosure of the character and 
purpose of God. 

It must be borne in mind that the New Testament does not 
present all the facts regarding the early churches. There 
were influences playing upon the new enterprise from every 
side, Jewish, Greek, Roman, Oriental. When the Christian 
movement emerged into fuller publicity in the second and 
third centuries it had taken on forms of organization and 
procedure derived from the cultures around it, and the con¬ 
nections between the two are not always clear. But the bonds 
that united the various communities of believers were every¬ 
where recognized. Disciples passed easily from one con¬ 
gregation to another without formality, although a letter of 


HERBERT L. WILLETT 


2 45 

introduction was appreciated. No barriers were erected 
within the wide diameters of the Christian society. All be¬ 
lievers were equal before God. 

Unfortunately this ideal situation did not endure. Dif¬ 
ferences arose over forms of organization suggested by the 
Roman imperial system, features of doctrine derived from 
Greek philosophy, and types of ritual borrowed from Jewish 
and Oriental sources. The most far-reaching cleavages re¬ 
sulted from political ambitions. The growing importance 
of the two capitals of the empire, Rome in the West and 
Constantinople in the East, led unavoidably to rivalry be¬ 
tween these two seats of governmental and churchly author¬ 
ity, with the emphasis in the West on legal and administrative 
matters, and in the East on theological and mystical sub¬ 
jects. Growing irritation led at last to open rupture, and in 
1054 a.d. the pope of Rome and the patriarch of Constanti¬ 
nople launched excommunications against each other. There 
were attempts in later years to reunite the severed sections of 
the church, East and West, notably at the Council of Flor¬ 
ence in 1437. But the claim of papal primacy rendered 
these negotiations futile. Through the centuries the Eastern 
Orthodox Church has labored under the manifold disadvan¬ 
tages of its oriental location, its autocephalous organization 
with national divisions and measurably independent admin¬ 
istration, its invincible tenacity in holding to its doctrinal 
definitions, and most of all the shocks it has suffered in the 
repeated political and military upheavals to which it has been 
subjected. It is not strange that in recent years it has made 
numerous although somewhat hesitant gestures of friendli¬ 
ness toward the Western churches, particularly those of the 
Anglican order. 


THE ECUMENICAL IDEAL 


246 

In the meantime the Roman Catholic Church employed the 
devices of urgent and often violent persuasion to prevent the 
defection of any of its adherents and to preserve the measure 
of unity it had attained. All forms of heresy were treated 
with rigorous suppression. The enginery of the Inquisition 
was set up, and the fires of martyrdom were kindled when¬ 
ever apostasy was suspected. Whole brotherhoods like the 
Lollards in England and communities like the Waldenses 
and the Albigenses in Italy and France were harried with 
the agencies of persecution in the effort to stifle secession. 
The early leaders of protest, Wyclif, Hus, Jerome of Prague 
and Savonarola, paid the price of dissent with their lives. 
But the era of growing enlightenment had dawned. The 
Renaissance and the Reformation came hand in hand. The 
Renaissance was the reformation of the European intellect; 
the Reformation was the renaissance of the European con¬ 
science. However, the rise of the denominational system 
was the heavy price Christianity was compelled to pay for 
the freedom which the Reformation brought. It need not 
be urged that these centrifugal movements to which the 
Reformation spirit of liberty and adventure gave impulse 
were wrong, save as they were the outcome of geographical 
separations, racial differences, cultural variations, social di¬ 
versities and class disputes. Most of them were efforts to 
rescue and defend some neglected truth which the new-found 
freedom had released. A number of these Christian commu¬ 
nities have added valuable elements to the teachings of the 
universal church. We are not to blame for the divisions 
with which the church is afflicted, but we are at fault if we 
further divide, or fail to promote all practicable plans for the 
attaining of unity. It is futile to debate the question whether 


HERBERT L. WILLETT 


247 

it would have been wiser to adopt the more cautious and de¬ 
liberate methods of More and Erasmus rather than the dar¬ 
ing and forceful measures of Luther and Calvin. What we 
are we are, a divided household, and the duty of the hour is to 
find the earliest and most promising design for uniting the 
sundered members of the body of Christ. 

When once the tragedy of the great separations, east and 
west, north and south, was realized, earnest efforts were 
made to repair the damage that had been wrought. The 
list of those who attempted to mediate between Roman Cath¬ 
olics and reformers, and between different groups of the 
latter, is long and impressive. Among them were Hugo 
Grotius, the Dutch publicist, George Calixtus, the German 
theologian, William Chillingworth and Richard Baxter, Eng¬ 
lish ministers, John Owen, chancellor of Oxford University, 
John Durie, ardent advocate of unity, and Gottfried Wilhelm 
von Leibniz, who conducted a significant correspondence 
with the Roman Catholic Bishop Bossuet on the subject of 
reunion. So far as doctrinal differences were concerned they 
were of minor importance. The reformers were in most re¬ 
gards loyal to the basic Catholic dogmatic inheritance. Both 
groups were the intellectual descendants of St. Augustine, 
although the Protestants laid fresh emphasis upon the teach¬ 
ings of the New Testament, now for the first time widely 
available in translation, and upon the character of the primi¬ 
tive church. 

But apparently the time had not yet arrived when efforts 
toward reunion could meet with even reasonable success. 
Years were to elapse before the church came to a realization 
of the sin and scandal of disunion, and the imperative need 
of amendment. There was however in all that post-Reforma- 


THE ECUMENICAL IDEAL 


248 

tion period a growing restlessness among Christians and an 
increasing sentiment favorable to cooperation. 

It is significant of the spirit of the times that, coupled with 
this dissatisfaction with the growing manifestations of sepa¬ 
ratism in the multiplying denominations, there was seem¬ 
ingly the conviction that such efforts as were made to unite 
the members of the Christian communities in useful service 
must find their fields of operation outside the churches. The 
sect spirit as such brooked no opposition. Illustrations of 
this fact are numerous and impressive. The Sunday school 
was projected by Robert Raikes not as a department of church 
activity but as an effort at social reform in a neglected dis¬ 
trict of Gloucester. George Williams’ ministries among the 
clerks and apprentices in London had no connection with 
organized religion and no encouragement from any church 
in the movement which developed into the Young Men’s 
Christian Association. Similar was the origin of the Bible 
societies, British and American, the temperance and anti¬ 
slavery associations and other religious and reform organiza¬ 
tions. So strong was the sectarian spirit that the churches 
found it impossible to unite for any of these remedial ac¬ 
tivities. 

Meantime the spirit of protest against divisions among 
Christians took various forms. Sporadic movements came 
into being for this purpose, such as the so-called O’Kelley 
Secession in the Methodist denomination, the group led by 
Abner Jones among the Baptists, the Washington Associa¬ 
tion led by Thomas and Alexander Campbell, which later 
grew into the body known as the Disciples of Christ, and the 
Christian Connection under the leadership of Barton W. 
Stone, the body now united with the Congregational Church. 


HERBERT L. WILLETT 


249 

The first serious attempt to unite the churches in definite 
Christian activity issued in the formation of the Evangelical 
Alliance, a body which was organized in Britain in 1846 and 
in the United States in 1867. This was a purely voluntary 
body, but it led to the more formal and authoritative Federal 
Council of the Churches of Christ in America, organized 
in 1908. 

Since that time the ecumenical movement has made rapid 
progress in both eastern and western hemispheres. Inter¬ 
denominational gatherings have been held for missionary, 
theological and social deliberations, the first of the compre¬ 
hensive order since the church councils of the early period — 
Edinburgh, Stockholm, Lausanne, Jerusalem, Oxford and 
Edinburgh, Madras and Amsterdam. Young people’s Chris¬ 
tian societies, home and foreign missionary boards, women’s 
missionary councils, associations devoted to religious educa¬ 
tion, conferences for the promotion and direction of commu¬ 
nity churches, and many other types of cooperative ministry 
in the Christian community have taken form in recent years. 
Perhaps most notable of all as signs of the times have been 
the denominational unions that have been formed, such as 
those in the Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist 
households; the unions that have taken place in England and 
Scotland; the union of the three leading denominations in 
Canada; of the French Protestant churches; and the union 
formed among the Christian forces of China, Japan, South 
India and the Philippine Islands with the title “ Church of 
Christ.” 

These facts and many others of similar import give illus¬ 
tration to the increasing movement in the churches in all 
lands toward godly unity and concord, and the growing 


250 


THE ECUMENICAL IDEAL 


numbers of those in the churches who are sensitive regard¬ 
ing the unhappy divisions prevailing in the Christian fellow¬ 
ship and are eager to promote any practicable measures look¬ 
ing to their correction. They give proof that the life-long 
efforts of men like Thomas Campbell, Samuel Schmucker, 
Philip Schaff, William Henry Roberts, James H. Garrison, 
Josiah Strong, Elias B. Sanford, Samuel Dwight Chown, 
Robert H. Gardiner, Newman Smythe, Charles H. Brent, 
Nathan Soderblom and Peter Ainslie have not been in vain. 

The church which shall realize in some true sense the ideal 
of Christian unity will not be an overhead and authoritative 
organization. From that type of uniformity the church was 
happily delivered by the Protestant Reformation. Its form 
and structure no one can predict at the moment. It is rather 
the conviction of those who believe in and pray for Christian 
unity that the Spirit will form for himself a body suitable to 
the high interests of the kingdom of heaven. Such a church 
must be catholic in the true sense. It will no doubt embody 
in its structure all three types of administration prevalent in 
the various communions today — presbyterian, episcopal and 
congregational. All these are found in the New Testament 
records. It must be hospitable to many varying points of 
view within the wide areas of Christian thinking. In doc¬ 
trines, in forms of worship and in the practical activities of 
its manifold program it must be appreciative of elements 
which at first may appear incompatible. It must be willing 
to welcome to its worship and its work members as wide 
apart in their convictions as fundamentalists and modernists, 
those who emphasize individual salvation and those who 
stress the social gospel, people of both scholastic and practical 
inclination, those of radical as well as those of conservative 


HERBERT L. WILLETT 


251 

temper, those who stress the supernatural and those who find 
God in the orderly processes of life, those who enjoy a highly 
liturgical service and those whose tastes are more simple. In 
fact all these shades of conviction and preference are at home 
in the same congregations today. The individual churches 
will organize their forms of worship and their patterns of 
work in accordance with the prevailing desires of their con¬ 
stituencies. The church united in the spirit and power of the 
ideals of Jesus, and in the light of the needs of the com¬ 
munity, will welcome to its membership people of as widely 
diverse types as Phillips Brooks, Dwight L. Moody, Charles 
Haddon Spurgeon, St. Francis, Tauler, Barth, St. Catherine, 
Walter Rauschenbusch, Albert Schweitzer, John Wesley, 
Hudson Taylor, John Calvin and William Booth. 

It must permit no differences of opinion regarding ordi¬ 
nances, orders or organization to intrude as separating fac¬ 
tors in its life and work. It must insist upon an open mem¬ 
bership, an open pulpit and an open program, where all 
worthful experiments are deemed worthy of examination 
and testing. It must employ all the approaches to Christian 
unity — prayer, conference, education. It must appreciate 
the fact that an organization which exhausts its thought and 
resources in efforts for its own survival can make no worthful 
contribution to the growth of the Kingdom of God. 


XXII 


THE LIBERAL HERITAGE 

WINFRED ERNEST GARRISON 
HE PRECEDING CHAPTERS of this book have pre- 



sented aspects of an interpretation of Christianity which 
finds sententious expression in words which appear every 
Sunday on the Calendar of the University Church of Disci¬ 
ples of Christ, Chicago, of which the authors of all these chap¬ 
ters are present or former members: 

This church practices union; has no creed; seeks to make religion 
as intelligent as science, as appealing as art, as vital as the day’s work, 
as intimate as home, and as inspiring as love. 

This may be called a “ liberal ” view of religion. It is liberal 
because it provides for an inclusive membership, a free mem¬ 
bership and a comprehensive program. It has brought into 
harmonious fellowship a large company of persons holding 
widely diverse opinions and has united them in the sense of 
loyalty to a common cause which is not that of merely carry¬ 
ing on the organization. It asks these people not to conform 
their opinions and attitudes to a norm set up by authority 
but to submit them constantly to the test of intelligence and 
experience in the light of free discussion and cooperative ef¬ 
fort. And it seeks to find religious values in the entire range 
of human interests and to provide a religious motivation for 
rewarding activities of the most varied kinds. These quali- 


WINFRED ERNEST GARRISON 


253 


ties, taken together, make what may be properly called a 
liberal religion. 

The term “ liberalism ” has been so variously used and 
abused that one is sometimes tempted to discard it in the in¬ 
terest of clear thinking. But that impulse should be resisted. 
It is an indispensable word with a rich content of meaning, 
and it is no more liable to misunderstanding than any other 
great word. Capacious words like “God,” “religion,” 
“ faith,” “ love ” and “ freedom ” carry wide varieties of 
meaning. Those who affirm them are often talking about 
different things, and between those who affirm and those who 
deny there is almost always a difference in the meaning of 
what is affirmed or denied. Yet we cannot get on without 
these words and the ideas for which they stand, though we 
may reject the ideas for which others make them stand. 

It is so with “ liberalism,” which is a legitimate word for 
an essential concept, though it is often illegitimately applied 
to certain ideas or practices which are related to it only inci¬ 
dentally if at all. As used here, it stands for a way of ap¬ 
proaching the problems of knowledge and the practical de¬ 
cisions of life, an attitude on the part of individuals toward 
other individuals and toward society, and a method of carry¬ 
ing on the whole process of creating and conducting the in¬ 
stitutions which make up the social order. These institutions 
may be political, economic, religious or cultural. A govern¬ 
ment, a system of industrial production and exchange, a 
church or a school may be either liberal or non-liberal. 
Which it is will depend upon the principles on which it is 
organized, the criteria of truth and value which are implicit 
in its procedure, and the interests it is designed primarily 
to serve. 


254 


THE LIBERAL HERITAGE 


It makes an immense practical difference whether an indi¬ 
vidual or an institution is liberal or non-liberal. Yet the char¬ 
acter and opinions of one and the structure and functions 
of the other are not defined by these terms. Or, to reverse the 
statement and at the same time to illustrate it, possession of 
the quality of liberalism is not necessarily indicated in an 
individual by his not believing in a personal God or in the 
Mosaic authorship and scientific accuracy of Genesis, or in a 
church by its having a creed which rejects the concept of 
original sin and the doctrine of the Incarnation, or in a gov¬ 
ernment by universal suffrage. 

Liberalism, then, has to do with methods, values and ends. 
It is not a body of doctrine, a form of government or a bag of 
tricks. Its method is that of intelligent investigation, free 
discussion, experimentation and self-correction in the light 
of experience. Its values, which also determine its ends, are 
the things which all men prize in their best moods. Its ulti¬ 
mate value is man himself. All other values get their value 
by being valuable to man. Especially must all institutions 
be put to the test of their contribution to the welfare of indi¬ 
vidual men and show cause why they should be perpetuated. 
It is true that the individual exists only in society, and it is 
truer to say that the individual is a product of society and its 
institutions than that society is a mere aggregate of individu¬ 
als. But just as the fruit, which is the product of the tree, 
is the end and justification of the tree from the orchardist’s 
standpoint, so individuals are the end and test of society. The 
welfare of individuals is the ultimate value which needs no 
other validation. All organizations and institutions and all 
their policies and procedures must be validated in terms of 
the benefits they produce for individuals. This is the basic 


WINFRED ERNEST GARRISON 


255 

faith of liberalism. Jesus spoke as a true liberal when he said, 
“ The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab¬ 
bath.” Caiaphas spoke as a typical anti-liberal when he said, 
“ It is expedient for us that one man should die for the 
people,” having previously explained that he meant not the 
people as individuals but “ our place and nation.” 

Liberalism asserts man’s right and ability to learn what 
truth he needs by the free exercise of his intelligence, but it 
does not assert that all truth can be attained by the scientific 
method, or that revelation and the supernatural must be re¬ 
pudiated. By the free use of intelligence one may discover 
the limits of the scientific method as well as many truths that 
lie within those limits. One may be an intelligent artist as 
well as an intelligent scientist. There are experiences of 
beauty and of wonder, as there are experiences of love, to 
which scientific analysis is irrelevant. The well furnished 
liberal must be humanist enough to take into account those 
aspects of experience which cannot be brought within the 
compass of any known or conceivable formula. Indeed, his 
estimate of man as the unique value and the measure of all 
values is rational only if he realizes that man himself is 
unique among the phenomena of nature. He is compelled 
to regard him as something other than a physical organism. 
And if he sees him as “ a little lower than God ” and 
“ crowned with glory and honor,” his liberalism will not be 
the worse but the better for it. 

This liberalism, which exalts the worth of the individual 
man and asserts his right to think and speak and live freely, 
has an old and honorable tradition. Yet it is a short tradi¬ 
tion when measured against all the centuries of the human 
adventure. Moreover, the story of liberalism is, for the most 


THE LIBERAL HERITAGE 


256 

part, the story of the development and expression of the idea 
by individual thinkers, not of its practice on a large scale or 
in any thoroughgoing way as the dominant principle in a 
society. As to the reputed “failure of liberalism” or the 
“ bankruptcy of liberalism,” which we frequently hear on the 
tongues of those who are disheartened about the present state 
of the world, I call your attention to the fact that liberalism 
was never tried at all until everything else had failed, and 
that it has never been tried very hard, and that the period 
of its partial and timid trial is still much shorter than that of 
the costly and calamitous failure of its alternatives. To 
abandon the liberal experiment because of its alleged failure 
and revert to any form of illiberalism — whether tyranny in 
the state or authoritarianism in the church — is like giving 
up the effort to find ways of friendly and peaceable adjust¬ 
ment of national interests and saying, “ Why not try war ? ” 
If liberalism has failed, Christianity has failed, and on the 
same terms — by not being courageously practiced. Neither 
has been tried, on any large scale, except in a weak dilution 
and in combination with other elements inconsistent with 
its character. 

For a thousand years the accepted concept of a Christian 
society was that of a “ pyramid to God ” It was held not only 
that all power, all rights and all knowledge come from God, 
but that these come to men through a graduated system of 
institutional agencies. The feudal system and the ecclesiasti¬ 
cal system were the dual aspects of the social structure, but 
not coordinate. Only the church had direct contact with the 
divine source of authority and truth. The empire exercised 
subordinate jurisdiction conditioned upon maintaining ac¬ 
ceptable relations with the church. The church might, for 


WINFRED ERNEST GARRISON 


2 57 

its own convenience, permit secular agents to perform func¬ 
tions which it did not wish to perform directly, as a judge 
may have a bailiff to keep order in the court or a sheriff to 
execute his sentences and decisions. Thus the entire feudal 
system, itself a “ pyramid ” of graduated dignities and au¬ 
thorities in which control was exercised from the top down 
and allegiance and service from the bottom up, existed only 
by grace of the ecclesiastical system which existed by the 
grace of God. 

Similarly the individual man, as a mere human being, had 
no rights and no means of gaining dependable knowledge of 
truth. As a free agent, as a thinker and as an end in himself, 
he did not exist. As a child of God, however, he had rights 
as against the secular power and reason within the limits of 
ecclesiastical permission. But as a child of God he was neces¬ 
sarily a child of the church, dependent upon his relation to it 
for every right he could claim and for whatever liberty he 
might enjoy for the use of his reason. Since the only proper 
relation one could sustain to the church was that of submis¬ 
sion, it was inconceivable that man should have rights as 
against the church or apart from it. (That, incidentally, was 
the reason the Jew had no rights; he was not in the “ pyra¬ 
mid.’’ Here anti-Semitism got its perfect rationalization.) 
It followed, obviously, that truth was considered a treasure to 
be transmitted by its accredited custodians, not to be dis¬ 
covered in a field free to independent research. 

This theory was, of course, never perfectly reduced to prac¬ 
tice. What has been stated is a diagrammatic, rather than a 
realistic, representation of the medieval scene. Ambitious 
sovereigns and worldly feudal lords did not willingly or com¬ 
pletely accept the subordination to the ecclesiastical power 


THE LIBERAL HERITAGE 


258 

which this system implied, even though they could formulate 
no competing social philosophy. Rebellious spirits, who 
thought and acted as free individuals in an age which did not 
recognize the existence of individual freedom, sounded notes 
that jarred harshly upon the patterned harmony of that theo¬ 
retically perfect system of institutional control. The system 
itself represented the most completely organized antithesis to 
liberalism that ever existed on a large scale until the rise of 
the modern totalitarian philosophies of government. The 
rebels against it were the pioneers of modern liberalism. It 
is of the nature of such a system to breed revolt. Man, being 
what he is, a creature with an invincible awareness of his own 
significance to himself, is not easily persuaded that he is only 
a fractional item in an institutional entity in which alone 
value resides. He may accept the doctrine in which that sub¬ 
ordination of man to the institution is implicit, but he cannot 
live by it. Certainly the Middle Ages, with all their ecclesi¬ 
astical courts, their inquisitions and their utilization of the 
police power of the state to do the bidding of the church, had 
no apparatus adequate to the task of suppressing all who ex¬ 
ercised, in greater or less degree, the liberties which the ac¬ 
cepted philosophy of the time denied. The “ age of faith ” 
seethed with incipient revolt against this whole scheme of 
things. 

From the fall of the Roman Empire until the beginning of 
the modern ferment — say in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries — virtually the whole body of European culture, 
its scholarship, its philosophy, its literature, its art, had been 
in clerical hands. By the sixteenth century, this picture was 
changed. A large body of secular literature had come into 
existence. Secular philosophers had supplanted the scholas- 


WINFRED ERNEST GARRISON 


259 


tics. Art had escaped from the suzerainty and the almost ex¬ 
clusive patronage of the church by the introduction of new 
subjects — classical, courtly, civic, common life and portrai¬ 
ture — and by the appearance of new classes of secular cus¬ 
tomers. The revival of classical learning, the dawn of a new 
education based upon it and the prevalence of the humanistic 
spirit broke the hold of the church on the minds of men. 
The new scientific spirit, with its emphasis upon observation 
and experiment, implied the repudiation of authority and the 
affirmation that man — mere man, as man, equipped with 
eyes and hands and a brain, and regardless of his status as a 
child of God and an obedient son of the church — could learn 
the truth about nature. Most of the scientists were laymen. 
The scientific society organized at Rome in 1601 provided by 
its constitution that no member of a religious order could be 
a member. 

A new world was being discovered and explored. While 
Spanish mariners and conquistadors scattered the names of 
saints over the map of the western hemisphere and quite sin¬ 
cerely sought to Christianize the natives whom they exter¬ 
minated or enslaved, no one took seriously the pope’s at¬ 
tempted allocation of sovereignty over the new lands, and 
nothing could have been more secular than the motives and 
methods of their conquest. Meanwhile, European politics 
and diplomacy had been thoroughly secularized in so much 
that the treaties which ended the Thirty Years’ War in 1648 
were made in entire disregard of the agelong precedent that 
all such negotiations should be conducted on consecrated 
ground and with the sanction of the pope, and the signatories 
specifically agreed that the pope should have no power to re¬ 
lease them from their oaths (as he had always claimed the 


260 


THE LIBERAL HERITAGE 


right to do) and even the Catholic princes paid not the slight¬ 
est attention to the bull Zelo Domus in which he denounced 
the treaty and declared it null and void. 

Every one of these movements was a rift in the “ pyramid.” 
Every one of them meant a field in which men might seek 
knowledge, or create beauty, or disseminate ideas, or adjust 
human relations and the conflicting interests of men, by the 
free exercise of their abilities without leave or license, without 
let or hindrance, from any central authority presuming to 
speak with the voice of God. In the development of the sci¬ 
entific and empirical temper and in the wide diffusion of that 
spirit and attitude among large numbers of people, the 
method and spirit of liberalism found perhaps fuller and 
more immediately fruitful expression than in any other field. 

The breakdown of the medieval “ pyramid ” was for the 
most part a secular movement freeing both governments and 
individuals from centralized hierarchical control. Its two 
main aspects were: (i) the rise of nations, challenging both 
papal and imperial centralization of power; (2) the Renais¬ 
sance discovery of the individual, challenging authority in 
the realm of the spirit and issuing in free experimentation, 
scientific method, and empirical and rationalistic philoso¬ 
phies. The Protestant Reformation at first utilized both. It 
began, as every revolutionary movement must, by assuming 
the right of individuals to revolt. Asserting the priesthood 
of all believers and the possibility of free access to God by 
every man, it became the religious counterpart of the secular 
Renaissance which had declared the independence of the in¬ 
dividual in matters of culture and knowledge. This was 
magnificent, but it was not war. 

Because the Reformation soon found itself in a state of war 


WINFRED ERNEST GARRISON 


261 


with the ecclesiastical authority from which it had revolted, 
it organized for defense. In doing so it shifted from its origi¬ 
nal ground, and that in two respects: First, it substituted the 
authority of an infallible book for the authority of an infalli¬ 
ble church. While the individual’s right to interpret the 
book was not denied, this right lost most of its practical value 
when Luther began to declare that the meaning of the book 
was so crystal clear (since “ the Holy Spirit is the simplest of 
all writers ”) that any other interpretation than his must be 
obviously wrong. Whoever held a variant opinion was there¬ 
fore no Christian at all because he was willfully rejecting the 
plain teaching of the Word of God. Second, Protestantism 
carried over the Catholic idea that religious unity was essen¬ 
tial to social stability and that the state should lend its aid in 
protecting the true church from competing organizations or 
heretical individuals. Entering into alliances with secular 
rulers wherever political conditions made it possible, it issued 
in a number of national established churches — in many of 
the German states, in Geneva, in the Scandinavian countries, 
in the Low Countries and in England and Scotland. In these 
alliances the church generally took a subordinate position 
(but not where Puritanism prevailed) and confined its atten¬ 
tion to doctrine and sacraments and a limited field of private 
morality. At the same time royal absolutism was developing. 

Thus the liberal spirit was driven out of both state and 
church. What had begun as a war of liberation ended in a 
new enslavement. Ended? No, it did not end there. It 
was really just beginning. The liberal spirit still lived, 
though not in established institutions either political or re¬ 
ligious. It lived in the minds and works of independent 
thinkers. Liberalism had its catacomb period in the seven- 


262 


THE LIBERAL HERITAGE 


teenth century. In the eighteenth it dared to show its head 
in the light, though not without risk. In the nineteenth it 
came increasingly to find expression in “ the laws and habits 
of the state,” in religious thought and in the positions and 
policies of some churches. The story is far too complicated 
to tell here. It is the story of the development of democracy, 
of science, of religious liberty, of the whole range of modern 
culture. Many Christian men have had leading parts in that 
development, but the churches, officially, have been inhibited 
by their traditions — the Roman Catholic Church by its es¬ 
sential principle of ecclesiastical totalitarianism, the older 
Protestant churches by fixation upon the policies they adopted 
in the years when they were fighting for Lebensraum. They 
are even now only beginning to recover from their retreat 
into a limited domain of ecclesiastical affairs and to learn 
that the medieval church was right in being concerned about 
the whole range of life, wrong only in trying to deal with it 
by an autocratic and theocratic rather than a democratic 
process. 

The medieval ecclesiastical tyranny of the “pyramid to 
God ” was shattered by the secular forces of Renaissance cul¬ 
ture and the rising power of nations. Effective liberalism 
from the thirteenth century to the sixteenth was secular. In 
our own time there is rising a no less tyrannical secular con¬ 
centration of authority — a “ pyramid to man.” Effective lib¬ 
eralism, by which if ever it must be shattered, will have to be 
religious in its motivation, in the intensity of its faith in a 
cause, in the conviction that the freedom of the human spirit 
is a corollary of the worth and dignity of man. 


XXIII 


A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF 
EDWARD SCRIBNER AMES 

Compiled by 

EDWARD A. HENRY 
BOOKS 

The Psychology of Religious Experience. Boston: Houghton 
Mifflin Co., 1910. 427 pp. 

The same. New York: Red Label Reprints, 1931. 

The Divinity of Christ. Chicago: Bethany Press (Christian Cen¬ 
tury Co.), 1911. 123 pp. 

The Higher Individualism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1915. 
161 pp. 

The Psychology of Religion: A Professional Reading Course. 
The American Institute of Sacred Literature. Chicago: University 
of Chicago Press, 1917. 

The New Orthodoxy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918. 
J 27 PP- 

Second Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1925. 

Religion. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1929. 324 pp. 

The same. New York: Red Label Reprints, 1931. 

Letters to God and the Devil. New York: Harper & Bros., 1933. 
Ir 3 PP- 


263 


264 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF E. S. AMES 


CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOOKS 

The Value of Theology, pp. 17-51 in Our First Congress. J. H. Gar¬ 
rison, editor. St. Louis: Christian Publishing Co., 1899. 

Prayer, in University of Chicago Sermons. T. G. Soares, editor. 
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1915. 

History of the Campbell Institute, pp. 33-43 in Progress: Twenti¬ 
eth Anniversary Volume. Chicago: Christian Century Press, 1917. 

Moral Education of the Training School Inmate, pp. 125-29 in 
National Conference for Social Wor\: Proceedings, 1919. 

In the Twentieth Century, pp. 11-13 in 7594-/9/9: Twenty-fifth 
Anniversary. Hyde Par\ Church of Christ. Chicago, 1919. 

Religion in the New Age, pp. 10-13 m America and the New Era: A 
Symposium on Social Reconstruction. E. M. Friedman, editor. 
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1920. 

The Mystics: Their Experience and Their Doctrine, in Proceed¬ 
ings of the Sixth International Congress of Philosophy, 1926. 

My Idea of God, pp. 235-50 in My Idea of God, A Symposium. J. F. 
Newton, editor. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1926. 

The Far Horizon: Sermon in King’s Chapel, Boston, in Best Ser¬ 
mons. J. F. Newton, editor. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 
1927 - 

Religious Values and Philosophical Criticism, pp. 23-35 * n Essays 
in Honor of John Dewey on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birth¬ 
day, October 20, 1929. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1929. 

Social Idealism in Its Relation to the Emotional Life of the 
Child, pp. 255-65 in The Child’s Emotions. Chicago Association 
for Child Study and Parent Education. Chicago: University of 
Chicago Press, 1930. 

Theory in Practice, pp. 1-29 in Contemporary American Theology 
(Autobiographies). Second series. V. T. A. Ferm, editor. New 
York: Round Table Press, 1933. 


EDWARD A. HENRY 


265 

Christianity and Modern Scientific Thinking, pp. 25-33 in 
Modern Trends in World Religions. A. E. Haydon, editor. Chi¬ 
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1934. 

Religious Ceremonials and Their Symbolism, pp. 80-106 in The 
Church at Wor\ in the Modern World. W. C. Bower, editor. 
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935. 

Radical Protestantism, pp. 63-75 in Varieties of American Religion. 
C. S. Braden, editor. Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1936. 

The Present Outlook in Philosophy of Religion: From the Stand¬ 
point of a Naturalist, pp. 332-37 in American Philosophies of 
Religion. H. N. Wieman and B. E. Meland, editors. Chicago: 
Willett, Clark & Co., 1936. 

Several contributions, passim, in In That Case . . . Murray H. Leiffer, 
editor. Chicago: Willett, Clark & Co., 1938. 


In cataloguing Dr. Ames’s contributions to periodical literature it 
has seemed best to present them in several groups. In the first are 
listed articles in professional magazines of philosophy and theology; 
in the second, articles of a general religious nature in the Christian 
Century, to which he was a frequent contributor for several years; in 
the third, articles in various periodicals of the Disciples of Christ. 

The treatment of this third category is complicated by its inclusion of 
the organ of the Campbell Institute which Dr. Ames was chiefly in¬ 
strumental in organizing in 1895 and which has published a journal 
under his editorship during the greater part of the period since that 
date. The Campbell Institute Bulletin began in October 1903 as a 
quarterly. In October 1907 this was changed to the Scroll, a monthly, 
which suspended publication in November 1908. In the fall of 1909 
the secretary began issuing a News Letter. In October 1910 the Camp¬ 
bell Institute Bulletin was revived and appeared regularly until 1918 
when it was again changed to the Scroll. With the November 25, 
1926, issue of the Christian, of Kansas City, the Scroll became a col¬ 
umn (or more) in that weekly paper and so continued until December 
1933. Since January 1934 the Scroll has been published regularly as 
a monthly. With brief intermissions, Dr. Ames has been the editor 



266 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF E. S. AMES 


through all these changes. Much of his writing has been editorial, 
and it is impossible within the necessary limits to record even all of 
his signed contributions. 

Similarly, with reference to material in the House News of the Dis¬ 
ciples Divinity House, the aggregate is large but the items are small 
and very numerous. Only a few of the more important could be 
listed. 

The monthly Messenger, of Dr. Ames’s church, has appeared since 
October 1905. Almost every issue begins with a letter from Dr. Ames, 
and for many years he compiled all the news for this paper and fre¬ 
quently published sermons in it. Those listed are his own selection. 
It should be added that many of Dr. Ames’s written words are to be 
found in the weekly Calendar of the church, which has been issued 
each Sunday since January 5, 1901. 

Files of the Messenger and of the Calendar are in the library of the 
University Church of Disciples of Christ. Files of the Scroll, the 
Christian and the House News are in the library of the Disciples Di¬ 
vinity House. The compiler of this bibliography makes grateful ac¬ 
knowledgment to Mr. Claude E. Spencer, librarian of Culver-Stockton 
College, for generous assistance in the laborious task of checking 
through many volumes of unindexed periodicals. 

ARTICLES IN MAGAZINES 

Theology from the Standpoint of Functional Psychology. American 
Journal of Theology, 10:219-32. April 1906. 

Non-Religious Persons. American Journal of Theology, 13:541-54. 
1909. 

Religion and the Psychical Life. International Journal of Ethics, 
20:48-62. 1909. 

Psychological Basis of Religion. Monist, 20:242-62. 1910. 

Social Consciousness and Its Object. Psychological Bulletin, 8:407-16. 
1911. 

The Survival of Asceticism in Education. American Physical Educa¬ 
tion Review, 19:10-18. 1914. 


EDWARD A. HENRY 


267 

Mystic Knowledge. American Journal of Theology, 19:250-67. 1914. 
Psychology of Religion. Biblical World, 49:124-27; 189-93; 252-59; 

317-22; 380-86. 50:52-57. 1917. 

Beyond Protestantism. Open Court, 33:397-405. 1919. 

Religious Values and the Practical Absolute. Presidential Address of 
the American Philosophical Association, 1921. International Jour¬ 
nal of Ethics, 32:347-65. 1921. 

Religion in Terms of Social Consciousness. Journal of Religion, 
2:264-70. 1921. 

The Validity of the Idea of God. Journal of Religion, 2:462-81. 
1921. 

Original Human Nature. Journal of Religious Education, 18:8-10. 
i^- 

Charaoter Through a Cause: a Baccalaureate Sermon. Rice Institute 
Pamphlets, 11:181-95. 1924. 

Religion of Immanuel Kant. Journal of Religion, 5:172-77. 1924. 
Monist, 35:241-47. 1925. 

Definition of Religion. Journal of Religion, 7:294-300. 1927. 
Religion and Philosophy. Journal of Religion, 8:14-29. 1928. 
Religion and Morality. International Journal of Ethics, 38:295-306. 
1928. 

Religion and Art. Journal of Religion, 8:371-83. 1928. 

A Thanksgiving Sermon — 1928. University of Chicago Chapel. 

Religious Education, 23:1039-45. 1928. 

Can Religion Be Taught? Religious Education, 25:42-50. 1930. 

Our Machine Age. Religious Education, 26:600-6. 1931. 
Humanism. Paper before the Chicago Literary Club. Club Papers, 
I 93 I - Pp- 5“33* 

Christianity and Scientific Thinking. Journal of Religion, 14:4-12. 

1934- 

A Philosophy of Life. Convocation Address at the University of Chi¬ 
cago, 1934. University of Chicago Magazine, 1934. 


268 BIBLIOGRAPHY OF E. S. AMES 

Liberalism in Religion. International Journal of Ethics, 46:429-43. 
1936. 

What a Ph.D. Thinks About: Address at the 1936 Convocation Dinner 
of University of Chicago Doctors of Philosophy. University of 
Chicago Magazine, 1936. 

ARTICLES IN THE CHRISTIAN CENTURY 

Christian Union in the Local Congregation. July 7, 1910. 

The Message of Tagore. March 12, 1914. 

Mysticism Not the Essence of Religion. May 14, 1914. 

Disciples Hymnbooks and Trinitarianism. Sept. 24, 1914. 

Practicing Christian Union. Jan. 13, 1916. 

The Use of Hymns: How the Hymnbooks Are Rewritten. Nov. 2, 
1916. 

A Letter to A. McLean. April 26, 1917. 

A Letter to the Church. Aug. 16, 1917. 

A Letter to a Business Man. Jan. 10, 1918. 

For These Times of War: a Prayer. Oct. 10, 1918. 

A Letter to the Mother of an American Soldier. Oct. 24, 1918. 

Ernst Haeckel and the Passing of Naturalism. Sept. 18, 1919. 

Beyond Protestantism. Oct. 23, 1919. 

A Letter to Abraham Lincoln. Feb. 12, 1920. 

Religion in the New Age. June 24, 1920. 

A Letter to God. Oct. 14, 1920. 

Unsectarian Membership in the Local Congregation. Sept. 22, 1921. 
Our Philosophers and the Mind of Jesus. Feb. 16, 1922. 

Modern Morals and Christian Ideals. April 20, 1922. 

A Letter to the Devil. June 1, 1922. 

A Letter to Alexander Campbell. Oct. 5, 1922. 

What Is Religion? May 17, 1923. 

A Vital Church. Feb. 18, 1926. 


EDWARD A. HENRY 


269 


What Salvation Can the Church Offer Today? Feb. 23, 1928. 

What Is Religion For? Christian Century Pulpit, Feb. 1930. 

Three Great Words of Religion. Dec. 13, 1933. 

Liberalism Confirmed. In the series “ How My Mind Has Changed.” 
March 22, 1939. 

A Pastoral Prayer. Christian Century Pulpit, Jan. 1940. 

ARTICLES IN DISCIPLE PERIODICALS 

The Quest of a Name. New Christian Quarterly, 4:17-25. Oct. 
1895. 

A New Epoch in the History of the Disciples. Christian Quarterly, 
2nd ser., 2:64-84. Jan. 1898. 

The Hyde Park Church of Christ. Christian Standard, 37:370. 
March 23, 1901. 

Questions Concerning Personal Religious Experience. Christian- 
Evangelist, 42:1457. Nov. 9, 1905. 

A Personal Religious Experience. Christian-Evangelist, 43:205, 211. 
Feb. 15, 1906. 

The Menace of Our Missionary Societies. Christian Standard, 47: 
1540. Sept. 23, 1911. 

Mr. Briney’s Contention. Christian Standard, 47:1748-49. Oct. 28, 
1911. 

Mr. Briney Again. Christian Standard, 47:1941. Nov. 25, 1911. 53: 
232. Feb. 24, 1917. 

The New Mysticism. Campbell Institute Bulletin, Nov. 1912. 
Maeterlinck’s Mysticism. Campbell Institute Bulletin, April 1913. 
Our Aim in Christian Union. Christian-Evangelist, 53:232. Feb. 24, 
1916. 

What Difference Does Religion Make? Scroll, April 1926. 

The Need of Religion Today. Christian (Scroll), April 22, 1926. 
Christian Union. Christian (Scroll), June 17, 1926. 

Omitting the Third Verse. Christian (Scroll), June 24, 1926. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF E. S. AMES 


270 

Character Through a Cause. Christian (Scroll), July 1, 1926. 

In the Land of Jesus. Christian (Scroll), Nov. 4, 1926; Jan. 6, 1927. 
One Day in Athens. Christian (Scroll), June 2, 1927. 

The Disciples of Christ. Christian (Scroll), June 9, 16, 23, 30, 1927. 
A Confession of Faith. Christian (Scroll), March 8, 15, 22, 29; April 
5, 19, 26; May 10, 17, 24, 31; June 14, 21, 1928. 

An Open Letter to Eloise. Christian (Scroll), Nov. 22, 1928. 

An Open Letter to Charles. Christian (Scroll), Nov. 29, 1928. 

An Open Letter to Mr. Stevens. Christian (Scroll), Dec. 6, 1928. 

An Open Letter to a Friend. Christian (Scroll), Dec. 13, 1928. 

The Nature and Extent of Unity. Christian Union Quarterly, 18:324- 
36. April 1929. 

Liberals Among the Disciples. Christian (Scroll), Sept. 5, 1929. 

An Open Letter to Professor Kershner. Christian (Scroll), Nov. 7, 
1929- 

Humanism. Christian (Scroll), Nov. 21, 1929. 

Haydon’s Humanism. Christian (Scroll), Jan. 30, 1930. 

Disciples Divinity House Chapel Dedicated. Christian (Scroll), Nov. 
13. T 93°- 

Tasks for Churches. Christian (Scroll), Jan. n, 1931. 
Intellectualism’s Challenge to Christianity. Christian (Scroll), June 
J 3> i93i- 

Walt Whitman’s Religion. Christian (Scroll), June 20, 1931. 

In Defense of Churches. Christian (Scroll), Dec. 26, 1931. 

A Philosopher Appraises the Disciples. Christian (Scroll), July 16, 

23, 1932. 

What Are the Disciples to Do? Christian (Scroll), Oct. 1, 1932. 

A Program for the Disciples. Christian (Scroll), Oct. 15, 1932. 
Church Finance. Christian (Scroll), Jan. 14, 1933. 

Religion and Democracy. Christian, Feb. 18, 1933. 

Religion and Science. Christian, Feb. 25, 1933. 

Religion and Industry. Christian, March 4, 1933. 


EDWARD A. HENRY 


271 


Religion and Technocracy. Christian, March 11, 1933. 

Leisure and Its Uses. Christian, March 18, 1933. 

A Methodist Revival Dressed Up. Christian (Scroll), March 25, 1933. 

The Nature of the Soul. Christian (Scroll), April 15, 1933. 

The Easter Secret. Christian (Scroll), April 22, 1933. 

Preaching on Preachers. Christian (Scroll), March 10, 1934. 

Mystical Experiences. Christian (Scroll), April 14, 1934. (Reprinted 
from Unity) 

The Revival of Theology. Scroll, March 1935. 

The Study of John Locke. Scroll, June 1935. 

The Disciples, Their Present Needs. Christian-Evangelist, Jan. 9, 
1936. 

The Disciples’ Advocacy of Christian Union. Swoll, Feb. 1936. 

The Disciples’ Advocacy of Union. Christian-Evangelist, March 15, 
1936. 

Living Religiously. Scroll, Sept. 1936. 

Liberalism in Religion. Scroll, Feb. 1937. (Reprinted from Inter¬ 
national Journal of Ethics) 

When We Pray. Christian-Evangelist, April 8, 1937. 

Peculiarities of the Disciples. Scroll, June 1937. 

An Ordination Charge to a Minister. Christian-Evangelist, Aug. 19, 
1937- 

Social Action and Theory. Scroll, Nov. 1937. 

After Open Membership, What? Scroll, Dec. 1937. 

Disciples, Baptism and Union. Christian-Evangelist, May 26, 1938. 

The Lockean Influence on Campbell. Christian-Evangelist, Sept. 8, 
1938. 

Surveying the Disciples. Scroll, beginning Sept. 1938 into 1939. 

The Disciples and Higher Education: Address for the Board of Higher 
Education at the International Convention, Denver, Colo., 1938. 
Scroll, Nov. 1938. 


272 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF E. S. AMES 


How Much and What Kind of Union Have We Today? Christian- 
Evangelist, Sept. 14, 1939. 

Whither Disciples? Scroll, Sept. 1939. 

Significance of Science. Scroll, June 1940. 

ARTICLES IN THE HOUSE NEWS OF 
THE DISCIPLES DIVINITY HOUSE 

The New Chapel. Nov. 1929. 

A Real History of the Disciples: Review of Religion Follows the Fron¬ 
tier, by W. E. Garrison. March 1932. 

The Religious Control of Emotion: Review of a Thesis by Wayne 
Leys. May 1932. 

Some Practical Problems. Aug. 1932. 

The Disciples and Preaching. July 1933. 

Modern Preachers: Review of American Preachers, by E. D. Jones. 
Feb. 1934. 

The Need of the Hour. May 1934. 

The Minister’s Dynamic. Nov. 1934. 

The Ideals of the Disciples. Aug. 1935. 

Training Men to Preach. Nov. 1935. 

The Disciple Inheritance. Feb. 1936. 

Personal Appreciation of Professor W. D. MacClintock. May 1936. 
Reasonableness in Religion. Aug. 1936. 

The Minister’s Mornings. Nov. 1936. 

The Religious Uses of Science. Feb. 1937. 

Historical Studies of the Disciples. Nov. 1937. 

Semantics. Feb. 1938. 

Democracy. May 1938. 

Science and Religion. (A wgn broadcast.) Aug. 1938. 
Undenominational Religion. Nov. 1938. 

Disciple Sense of Cause. Feb. 1939. 


EDWARD A. HENRY 


273 


Keeping the Mind Alive. May 1939. 

Mother Nature. Aug. 1939. 

Church Finances. Nov. 1939. 

Keeping Records. Feb. 1940. 

SERMONS IN THE MESSENGER 

(Monthly Publication of the University Church of Disciples of Christ) 
God’s Care. Oct. 1905. 

The Conception of God. Nov. 1905. 

Aggressiveness in Religion. Dec. 1905. 

Salvation. Jan. 1906. 

The Free Gospel. Feb. 1906. 

Redemption. March 1906. 

The Perplexities of Faith. April 1906. 

The Rise of Religion in the Individual. May 1906. 

Federation. June 1906. 

Heaven. July 1906. 

Prayer. Aug. 1906. 

Centennial of the Disciples. Sept. 1906. 

Social Ideals. Nov. 1906. 

Christian Union and the Disciples. Jan. 1907. 

Renouncing the World. Feb. 1907. 

The Disciples and Their Ideals. March 1907. 

Christian Union. April 1907. 

The Divinity of Christ. May 1907. 

The Religious Nature of Man. June 1907. 

The Investment of Truth. Aug. 1907. 

Why I Am Not a Unitarian. Nov. 1909. 

The Empirical View of Jesus. Dec. 1909. 

Twenty Years a Minister. Jan. 1910. 

Education and Initiative. April 1910. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF E. S. AMES 


274 

Christian Union in the Local Congregation. June 1910. 

The Passing of Religious Controversy. Jan. 1911. 

Two or Three Together. Feb. 1911. 

A Letter to the Church. April 1917. 

The Meaning of Worship. Feb. 1918. 

PAMPHLETS 

The Mission of the Disciples. 1902. 15 pp. 

A Personal Confession of Faith. 1902. 15 pp. 

Christian Union and the Disciples. 1903. 15 pp. 

Associate Church Membership. 1903. 

The Friendship of Jesus. 1904. 

A Lenten Sermon. 1904. 

Practicing Christian Union. 1915. 19 pp. 

The Difference Between Churches. An Anniversary Sermon, Oct. 7, 
I 9 I 7 - 15 PP- 

Invisible Companions. 1928. 

Open Letters on Religion and Democracy, Science, Industry, Tech¬ 
nocracy, and Leisure. N.d. (1933). 56 pp. 

The Disciples and Higher Education. Address delivered at the Inter¬ 
national Convention of Disciples of Christ, Denver, Colo., Oct. 18, 
1938. 13 pp. 

Whither Disciples? 1939. 29 pp. 

The Isolation of the Christian Religion. N.d. 

Religion as Enrichment of Life: Purposeful Living; Cooperative Liv¬ 
ing; Mystical Wholeness; Ceremonial Celebration. N.d. 16 pp. 

Orders for the Communion Service. N.d. 27 pp. 

The Reincarnation of Christ: A Sermon. N.d. 16 pp. 


EDWARD A. HENRY 


275 


UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPTS 

The following unpublished manuscripts and abstracts of lectures 
are deposited in the library of the Disciples Divinity House of the 
University of Chicago. 

A Pragmatist’s Philosophy of Religion. Lectures at the Pastors’ In¬ 
stitute, University of Chicago, 1936. 

I. The Meaning of Pragmatism. II. The Pragmatic View of Religion. III. The 
Pragmatic Conception of God. IV. Further Implications of Pragmatism. 

The Reasonableness of Christianity. Lectures at the Pastors’ Institute, 
University of Chicago, 1937. 

I. The Meaning of Reasonableness. II. Christianity and Reasonableness. III. 
Rationalist and Empiricist Views of Reasonableness. IV. Some Implications. 

When Science Comes to Religion. Lectures at the Pastors’ Institute, 
University of Chicago, 1938. 

I. Historical. II. Fruits of Science and Their Religious Use. III. Unity and 
Scope of Science. IV. Science and Religious Values. 

Religious Implications of John Dewey’s Philosophy. Lectures at the 
Pastors’ Institute, University of Chicago, 1939. 

I. His Philosophy and Problems of Religion Today. II. A Common Faith. 
III. Scientific Method, Religious Attitudes and Values. IV. Views of Nature, 
Man, God, and Ideologies vs. Theologies. 

This Human Life. Gates Memorial Lectures, Grinnell College, 1937. 
I. Hunger and Hope. II. Ways and Means. III. Anxiety and Elation. IV. 
The Thick Web of Life. 

Imagery and Meaning in Religious Ideas. Alumni Lecture at Yale 
Divinity School, 1932. 

The Will to Believe. Lecture at Northwestern University, Oct. 1937. 

Current Philosophies of Religion. Mimeographed notes on four lec¬ 
tures. 

John Locke. Lecture at the Art Institute, Chicago, 1928. 

Man Looks at Himself. Commencement Address, Lynchburg Col- 
lege, 1935- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY OF E. S. AMES 


276 

The Philosophical Background of the Disciples. Paper before the 
Commission for the Restudy of the Disciples, 1936. 

What Is Religion? Sermon in the Chapel of the University of Chi¬ 
cago. 

The Religious Response. Sermon in the Chapel of the University of 
Chicago, July 23, 1934. 

Training for Wisdom. Commencement Address, Transylvania Uni¬ 
versity and the College of the Bible, Lexington, Ky., 1940. 










































